Math Rotations | Naturally Elementary

[Music] you know me from Instagram I go by naturally Elementary I am a second year teacher and I teach second grade and this is Leo this is our class pet but um he's like my favorite thing in the whole world so you will definitely see him a lot in my videos because he's like okay so in this video I'm gonna share a few things I'm gonna share what exactly math rotations is I'm going to share the structure of how I work it in my classroom I'm going to show you how to plan and I'm also gonna show you and share some management tips slash my small group area because small group instruction is a massive part of this rotation and I wanted to show you some of the things that I keep in my math rotation cart that have been so helpful in teaching this year if I'm looking to the side a lot it's because I have notes of everything that I want to show you with you guys because I'm super nervous if you can't tell and I use my hands because I'm nervous so we're gonna go ahead and we're gonna just jump right into it and I wanted to start with sharing with you guys what exactly math rotations is so the typical way that we teach math is just whole group and that's exactly what I did last year with my first graders and I did not like it I am a looping teacher so I have a whole group of students and I start with them in first grade and I teach them through the entire year but then the next year I have that same group of students but I'm teaching second grade so this was actually like the best way for me to experience this whole math rotation thing because I had the same students and I was really able to plan a lot over the summer because I already knew what my kids were like and I already knew what they needed so that was great so math rotations to me and my eyes it's like the daily five of math like the way that you would teach daily five for reading is really similar to the way math rotations works so I actually have a little visual for you guys so there is an acronym for math and this is what the students rotate through throughout your math rotation times so and the stands for meet with the teacher a stands for at your seat T is technology and H is hands-on so each kid is gonna go through each one of these centers every single day and I split my kiddos up into four different groups and they're based on ability level and that way each group goes through each one of these rotations within my time now I personally only have about 45 to 50 minutes for my math block so these timing and everything can definitely be altered based on how much time you have for your math block but for me I start with that five minute tops a whole group lesson just a review of this skill that were either learning or introducing the new concept and then I go into math rotations right away and we do 10-minute rotations so that's the extra 40 minutes of my 45-minute block and then I kind of end it there sometimes we'll come back together and we'll kind of reflect and talk about you know what went well with our lesson or what didn't go well what we felt like we were learning or well we felt like we still needed help with and that helps too every now and then but also I feel like the small group time is really that time for me and my students to reflect as well so I don't usually do a reflection at the end so the way I set it up as we do that five minutes we do 40 minutes of rotation time I'm rotating through four different groups of students and they are rotating through the other three centers that they have to get through okay so let's go ahead and let's jump into what each Center is kind of made up of and what I do for planning with it so I actually have a whole binder up on my TPT store all about math notations and this is one of the planning sheets that's included in there and I love this planning sheet this one has helped me so much this year every day the week and then there's every Center and so I at my table with my students and exactly what they're gonna be doing at their seat when they're at that rotation and then what we're doing for technology for the week and hands-on for the week and I always keep these the same all week and sometimes for more than one week and that makes me planning a lot simpler because the only thing I'm really planning is what I'm doing at my table which is now I'm gonna kind of jump in and deal some advice for planning my biggest piece of advice for planning is don't overdo it and use what you already have you guys are most teachers already have a math curriculum and I use that for my planning for doing like ninety percent of my planning I do not try to reinvent the wheel because there's just no need to there's already the resources and there's already the lessons and I literally pull from my curriculum what I'm supposed to be doing whole group and I put that into my small group instruction time and with that I can also kind of differentiate based on where my groups are so I can kind of pull it back for my kiddos who need to read teaching and we can go over the example that I already did on the board before we try you know doing this on our own we use a lot of manipulatives I help a lot or really structured with my lowest group with my middle two groups because like I said I do ability group so my middle two groups are pain and my kiddos who are pretty much on grade level we go through the lesson that my curriculum provides and we will do one example together a small group and then it's kind of independent okay here's the problem I want you to do and I want you to solve show me thumbs up when you're done and we can't just go through that and it just gives like this very specific small group instruction where I'm right there with them and I can see exactly what they need if they're making a mistake I can redirect to them right away and I can't say enough good things about my small group time with my kiddos and then for my highest group that's my group that needs a challenge so will usually use whatever they're supposed to be doing whole group as like a really quick warmup and then I will push them and challenge them with you know harder numbers different equations all kinds of different things um so yeah that's kind of how I operate and differentiate for at my table and like I said I use my curriculum I'm not coming up with these lessons on my own because that would just be craziness I would be waiting way too much and then also I'm using my curriculum further out there seat work as well they have a math book which most schools do provide student workbooks and so there is always a corresponding page in their workbook that they're supposed to be doing with a lesson and so that's exactly what I use for a seat they get their MacBook and they do the corresponding page and that's that like so simple I don't have to do anything with technology I'm gonna leave a list of different things that you guys can use for technology down below but my by far favorite thing for my kiddos to do during their technology rotation is to get on a Chromebook and go onto extra math org and that'll be in my list but extra math is great for back to fluency it's awesome for where my kiddos at it does level them so it will challenge my kiddos who are higher it will give my kiddos who are lower different problems and fact fluency that they need so I really like extra mile but there's a few other websites and there's a few other apps I use on my classroom iPads for technology as well and then the last section is hands this is when we're doing task cards or you know we're walking the room or we're doing different centers or math games or we're just doing flashcards with a partner there's so many different things you can do for hands on and I am also going to leave a list of things down below that I do with my kiddos for hands-on I try to keep it really simple because I don't want anything that's gonna take a lot of time for them and I try to keep it so that whatever they're doing for hands-on will last the entire week like they won't get bored of it it's challenging enough that it's gonna take their whole time and it's not going to be too easy for them and it's going it's not gonna let them get naughty but let me show you what I have right now so we're doing camp fire math as our hands-on activity right now actually and so recording page I just made this up it's literally tasks cards around the room this was something I had made for our campfire day that we were doing last week and we just didn't get to it so instead of just wasting what I had already done I just so here's the recording sheet there's 20 boxes because I've got 20 task cards up around the room and they are doing triple digit addition because that is one of the biggest pieces of this unit that we're doing so I literally have them scattered around the room like here's a few problems and then they'll move over this way and there's a few problems taped here and some here and there's some over on my whiteboard on my back table and they're just all over the place so my kiddos keep their recording sheet in a folder that I have for unfinished work in their desks and then they get a clipboard and they just take this in their pencil and they walk around the room and there solving their problems for hands-on and it's so so simple and I like that there's 20 problems because they can do five a day and then that will last my entire week which I love okay I do want to share this resource because I just purchased this on the TPT sale it's made by simply creative teaching and I'm so excited it's first and second grade differentiated Math Center bundles and I really have it I'm so excited because it's literally going to last me all year next year and it's just all kinds of really fun center ideas that I am going to be using for hands-on so I'm actually in the process of getting these printed out this year so that I can have them ready to go for next year and I'm gonna take some time this summer to kind of plan out when we're gonna use each one like there's a winter one so obviously we'll use those in the winter time I think we're gonna start with these tasty ones they're so cute you guys like look how cute this is oh my gosh she's adorable I'm gonna link her TPT store if you are interested in this product because it's so cute like how fun are these graphics and she literally goes through all the skills that I teach with in first and second grade so this is awesome like they're gonna have to add different money amounts this would have been perfect for this unit I'm actually doing right now because we're literally doing that and there's recording cheese for everything there's some subtraction and addition mixed things there's graphing and like this is just one thing so we probably will start the year with something like that and then there's some for fall so okay once into the year we'll use the fall ones and I just I can't get over how cute it is time place value like just partner houses these will be great for the beginning of first grade I'm so excited I don't think I can stay so excited anymore holly-jolly is cute one Monster Mash there's a spring one so that product comes with literally all of these and there's so many different games within each center bundle I'm just like I can't even get over it I'm so excited so that is a really really great resource for hands-on activities but there's literally so many different sellers on here who do it for different grade levels I believe she only has this for first and second grade so if you're a first and second grade teacher this would be great but if not definitely just like put in math centers and your browser up here and you will find so many different things okay so next I kind of just wanted to show you guys my planning binder now everything in here is from my planning binder on TPT I'm gonna go through and show you some of the different planning sheets that there are but I also kind of break it down and show you what ended up working really well for me this year when you open up my binder loops there is this page which I'm doing really quickly because it's got my student names on them but it's a page that I have in a sleeve protector so that I can write down the different groups that I have for my math rotations and then it's really easy to change out for each unit because some kiddos you know are really good at one skill and not out in another and so I can kind of move my groups around based on their ability but then the first thing I have is all of these week at a glance sheets and this is kind of where I do my whole planning for the week and like I already showed you guys I plan out my small group what they're doing at their seat for each day what we're doing for technology that week and hands-on and that's great and this is actually ended up working the best for me this year but I also have a tab for each one of my groups and I go kind of highest to lowest so group one is like my lowest group through two is my middle or group two and three or my middle groups Group four is my highest group and then inside I've got different different plans as well so this would be like a small group lesson plan that I could do for the group but I've also got like so so many different plans and what I found was that was second grade I really didn't have to be you know really focused on the strategy and the focus scale on the lesson and the vocabulary for each lesson just because we're we're doing pretty good here in second grade but first grade I feel like I'm gonna have to be really specific about how I spend my 10 minutes with my kiddos so I'll probably start using these lesson plans next year or I really plan out okay what am i doing and what is the strategy we're gonna use what kind of manipulatives do I need all kinds of different things and there's just lots of planning sheets like they're my binder for math rotation so there's all kinds of different ones there's lots of week at the glance week at advances there's lots of like lesson plans that you can use for breaking it down this is what I have in that page protector sleeve and I just printed it on a strobe rights because an extra like that and then I just write the names of my kiddos on top in each group there's another one another week at a glance you can plan out exactly what you're doing with you each individual group or at your table work for the whole week this is the one that I use a lot and that is all my little lesson fans in there so if you are interested in these these are in my TPT store I will leave a link below it also comes with some fun covers for your binders that you can have a fun cover on top I just got a binder from Target cute one that I like and work with it and these are actually file folders from Target that I just three-hole punched to stick in there is in that way it's also easy to like just pull this out if I want to and it's got all that groups small group plans and if I needed to print anything for that specific group I can just throw it in here as well so I really liked that this stuff is set up for this yeah also with that binder I do plan on doing a pretty big update this summer adding some different planning sheets kind of fine-tuning the ones that are already in there just based on what I've learned this year I made all those planning she's at the beginning of the year when I was like trying to figure it all out and seeing what would help me plan and so I will be doing an update and adding some more information into my planning binder just kind of more of like an explanation of what I do and why I would use those different sheets and yeah so be on the lookout for that but I'm over here I'm in my small group little area and I wanted to go through I wanted to go through my math cart with you guys I have a cart for reading a card cart for math so that I have all kinds of different resources for my small group instruction so I'm gonna turn you guys around and I'm gonna show you everything that's in my cart right now and the things that I like to use on a daily basis all right I'm just noticing that there's some dead don't like it I've gotten for me okay so this is probably my biggest little basket of goodies things that are really inexpensive that you can pick up um so some of the things I keep in here are different flashcards the money and the telling time flashcards are from the target dollar section they were literally a dollar but I really liked these for my hire group because they're actually pretty tricky trickier than you would think so I picked those up for my hire groups and it's just good review even if I just do it as a quick warmup you know handout some of the flashcards have them go through them it just gets them to start thinking and it does that spire over spiral review even if I'm not teaching a unit on telling time in a unit on money at the time and I'm using them so I really like those um I've got some different little task cards in here as well these are all from different sellers I'll have to look em up and put them down below but I just found some task cards on TPT these ones were story problems this one is transformations ooh this is a math toolkit product that's I have not actually put together yet but I have kept it over here because I want to I've got it printed out and everything so I'll probably put these together for next year but it's got a cute little cover and then these were some of the things I wanted to make sure that I kept in them one of them is a place value chart so I got that kind of saved I have do you see all those containers in the corner those are all those little like photo box containers that you can get at Michaels and I'm planning on doing some kind of math toolkit next year or over the summer sorry I'm like all over the place okay and then these are also loose I'm using peanut butter for my lower groups also got these from the target dollar section these were counting money puzzle cards where they had to connect the value and in the coins that was really telling time cards I always have index cards I've actually got a ton of them already open but a little container of index cards because we always think T need them and then this is something I made when we were doing story problems cubes is not my idea it's something you can find on Pinterest but I just made these little cards and laminated them to remind my kiddos of which the steps were for story problems and so I those in there whenever we have a story problem I just throw these out and put them in front of the kiddos so that they can remember what I do and the knees probably the biggest hit ever I kiddos love these okay so these are little containers from the dollar store you can get them for like a pack up to for a dollar a pack a three for a dollar that we're really hard to find I don't have a whole lot because I can find them but I just keep these little Target dollar section erasers in here and we use these as manipulatives as counters kids like buy when I throw a little box of these in front of them they love that okay so more things that are in my cart these are from my curriculum but they're just different place value cards that I use in small group a lot I also keep little sentence strips for vocabulary every now and then if we have come to a word that I need them to really know then I'll write it on a little sentence strip and I'll throw it up on my board behind me money and I've got some other little things I've got these are also from the target dollar section I feel like I totally found a lot of things to this at the target dollar section and I found looking again this summer because they always have really great things before the beginning of the school year so these are little dry erase a little like fact fluency books and so the kiddos can grab a dry erase marker and they can just go on with them and this one's all about multiplication this one was addition and I ended up cutting it apart because I wanted my girls to be able to use them and actually something else I did with those was I put on in these little baby sleeves so that it was just in there and then they could write on top of it because it was in the sleeve these are just different things that I've collected little games that we played throughout the year those are triple digit numbers I'm pretty sure we just like grabbed to add them together wrap twos did this we did 3d shapes I got all those because I ended up making and I just didn't want to throw them away because I know I'm gonna have to use them again next year so I just keep a little bucket with my shapes in them these are three baseboards these ones we're not really great as you can see they're like disgusting right now these were from the target dollar session don't really recommend because they're like cardboard material and they just didn't hold up so you have those but I've also got other math whiteboards that we use and then just some extra of these sleeves or whenever I need those this double container I got from I throw some tires in there for me to highlight on problems and stuff I've got just little utensils in there that I just throw on the cart so that they're really easy and ready for me to use and then on the bottom is just more curriculum stuff so my curriculum comes with a little Center some-some Center ideas so you can just flip these and there's little Center games on there and then also with some differentiated cards so each unit has different cards for different levels of kiddos so like I said don't feel like you don't have the resources for this type of instruction like there's so much that comes with curriculum use it I love it and that is everything that's in my math car right now so as for some tips with like small group just as it is not even like math rotations just with small group instruction I have a few little tips and tricks that I've picked up along the way that really help with keeping your kiddos focused when they're in group keeping them on track and making sure that they're really working their hardest for those 10 minutes or 15 minutes or however long they're actually sitting there with you one of the biggest ones I picked this up from the teacher that I worked with during my student teaching who I actually want her team now so she's like one of my best friends but she would put a skittle every kiddo at her small group table and if they made it through the entire group without interrupting her staying focused doing what they were supposed to be doing then they got to take this skittles but if they were like if they interrupted her whatever's she would just pull the skill away so like literally lay a skittle out in front of each one of your kiddos and if they're doing what they're supposed to be doing and you never have to take it away and they get one skittle when they leave your group and if they're being naughty you can just pull that skittle away and oh my gosh it's switches there's a switch in them and they're little angels because they love skittles so bad so that's a really big tip I do that for math hand for reading something kiddo today let's see what else do I keep in here I just keeps some little things I use a bell when I'm transitioning so when I'm done with one of my groups I'll tell them okay you're on to your next rotation goodbye and I bring my little bell and the entire class turns around and they look at me another tip I picked up from my teacher who I worked with with my student teaching she used Abela as well and then they know right away okay it's time to transition I'm gonna get up I'm gonna figure out what I need to do next and then group I'm gonna go my Chromebook whatever it is but the holding of the bell works really nicely and then I also really like this this is an assessment little guide by Amy Groesbeck and it's just all kinds of different formative assessment activities you can do really quick little things to assess where your kiddos are at so I will grab this and look through them sometimes and we'll do these in small group it doesn't even have to be cool group so I really like that so those are just a few little things and tips that I like to keep back here that helped me manage my kiddos at my group but also my kiddos out in my classroom who we're supposed to be doing independent work also I like to keep my groups hung up behind me at my small group table that way whenever I'm switching and rotating I can kind of just flip back really quick and look I can also like look in my binder but I don't always like to have my binder out cuz I just feel like it takes up a lot of like my teaching space so I'll usually just pull out my planning sheet and then I've got my groups posted and that way my kiddos can also remember what to group they're in and that helps a lot with just management and then I don't have the question which group am ia this week which group am i in right now I can just say the word and I usually keep a rotation schedule up there - that's not paper I was just showing you guys with all the different centers and then my different kiddos so this is actually in a PowerPoint up on my board the entire rotation time so that way when I'm like okay we're on rotation 3 switch they know exactly where to go they know their groups and they know what they should be working on next so I feel like I'm kind of moving into management tips and tips for keeping this working really seamlessly and smoothly and one thing that I decided or I found that I needed was someplace for my kiddos to see exactly what they were supposed to do for each rotation so I made this little grid it's literally made out of washi tape and I posted it on my whiteboard and it tells them what to bring with them when they come for group with me so this week they need a whiteboard and their dry erase marker it tells them exactly which page they should be doing in their book for a thir seat it reminds them what they're doing for technology this week we were doing that iPad apps and then it also tells them what activity they're doing for hands-on so that's a campfire math and that's just a really nice visual because I made it pretty big and it's right up there at the front of my room so that I don't ever have to answer that question again either I explained it one time right after my whole group instruction and then it's on them if they don't know it they look at the board okay y'all so just my last few little bits of like advice and tips with math rotations my biggest one you guys is just keep it simple don't feel like you have to do these crazy fun activities for every little Center and that you have to completely plan out you know your entire script for your small group just keep it simple and use what you already have use that curriculum that your district provides you with because there's you're using that curriculum for a reason and there's so many good resources within that so just use that it's it's gonna make your life so much easier it gives you exactly what to do for your small group it tells your kiddos what they should be doing at their seat and really the only thing on you is technology enhance my second piece of advice would be to just give yourself grace with it and to let it take time just like daily five just like anything where we're teaching our kiddos to do something independently it's gonna take time and let it have its time the beginning of the year is gonna be a little bit crazy with it I would just just plan on that and just be okay with that and maybe you just practice you know a few times before you actually start teaching them real curriculum and real materials in the small group instruction time but just just know that it's gonna take a little bit of time it's gonna take some practice but your kiddos are gonna rise to it and there's a lot of independent work with this but there's also that amazing time where you get to just work one-on-one with those kiddos every single day like I can't even tell you how much I know about my kids and I know exactly where they're at because I have that time so give it time to work itself out have grace with it it's going to be great you're gonna love it your kiddos are gonna grow so much like I I've seen a lot of growth in my kiddos this year I feel like I know that I know my kid it was just so much more I feel like during parent-teacher conferences this is something that's really nice to be able to tell them because you're working when I'm with their kid every single day and you actually really know that kiddo I felt like last year I struggled a lot with that with like I don't really I think your kid owes you know keeping up with me and my whole group instruction but like it gave me a lot a lot of information about each one of my kids so I really enjoy this teachings okay you guys I am going to go ahead and I'm gonna get out of here but I just wanted to say if you have any questions if you have any comments leave them down below I would love to answer them please subscribe to my channel I would love for you to be able to see when I'm posting new videos I plan on doing quite a few before the school ends and then maybe even some teachers summer vlogs I don't know but subscribes that you can get notified whenever I post a video and if you're not already following me on Instagram go ahead and find me there I'm naturally Elementary and I would love to see your sweet face there okay bye

Channel: Naturally Elementary

Views: 29,930

Rating: 4.8867927 out of 5

Keywords: education, math, teachervlog, teaching, teacher, teacherlife

Id: iOR_8wRq4Ug

Length: 33min 47sec (2027 seconds)

Published: Sat May 12 2018