Small Group Math Lesson

hi i'm jamie from not so wimpy teacher and it's time for another video in the series that i've been doing about how to teach math so if you missed any my video so far i started with a video about what math workshop is and the different components that make up a good math workshop and then i did a video about the math mini lessons the whole group lesson today's video is all about the math small group so if you missed some of the other videos you might want to catch up on those first and then we're gonna chat a little bit about the math small groups i told you during the video about the mini lessons to think of that mini lesson as just an introduction to the skill and that all the magic would happen during your small group so that's we're going to chat about today how will you put together your math groups and what will you do with your math groups that this life here i've shown you a couple of times but it's a good reminder this is kind of what math workshop is it's made up of a mini lesson then the small group center time followed by a short share time so we already heard about the mini lesson and how you we're going to use as much your curriculum as possible to introduce new skill new vocabulary then we're gonna move into our small group time while we're working with students in small group the rest of our class will be working on centers and in the next several videos i will be showing you how you make those centers work not least classifying teaching new centers all the time not spend every weekend parking new centers we're gonna talk about that in the upcoming videos but today let's just focus in on those small groups of students that you're gonna meet with all right let's answer some questions about creating groups i get some of the same questions over and over again so i thought i would just sort of answer them for you and remember that this is just what really worked for me after trying several different things and you may have to get creative and come up with some solutions that best meet your classroom student needs so I found over the years that having three or four groups is really ideal when I first started using math workshop I actually had six groups which made the trip smaller but what it ended up doing is meant that I have less time to spend with each group I didn't feel like I was making a big enough difference because I was loved she could keep going keep moving keep moving and it created more of a chaotic crushed atmosphere where I really didn't feel me students were getting enough of that differentiation that small groups are supposed to give them I felt like I was as soon as they got all of the materials like alright next for next group it was too much I found that actually adding a couple more students to each group and having less groups gave me more of an opportunity to truly see what all of the students make up for doing so I highly recommend three or four I always have to have four because of my classroom size but if you have a smaller classroom size three will be super awesome in my next video I will be going into more detail about the schedules how many of you've seen me each day how long we meet with them that's coming in the next video then I can ask them how many students should be in each group and it's it's a personal decision I think that small groups work with four to eight students a lot having eight students in my group one term had up nine and that's really tough but I still found that it was better to have a slightly larger group that they had a whole nother group and that I was much time for make groups so that's a personal decision that really ended up making a big difference for me that I kept at the four groups and I kept four to eight students I usually have about six students in each group or seven but I think you could go up to eight and I even had to go up to nine one time there wasn't a deal but it was still so much more differentiation then I was able to provide whole group and so I kind of keep reminding myself of that that having a large class is challenging but I'm still giving them so much more of that attention that they need on their level through smoker even if there's more kids in the group that I really wanted okay we're gonna decide who's in what group first of all I think it's important for your math groups to be ability groups meaning that you're going to have groups that are more lower-level groups they're on level groups that are higher level of course we would never call them that but I think mixed ability groups make it hard for you to meet the students where they're at and push them because then all you've done is create a smaller version of your class thinking of kids at all different places so it's hard to meet them and push them because they're still in all different places and the great thing about small group is that you're able to take that group that has many different levels and meet with just one of those levels at a time and then you can start right where they're at and push them forward and that means my high kids can still get pushed without totally losing my lower level learners so I do think it's important their ability group that being said it's not perfect there's just not a perfect science to it and they think that as teachers we get overly consumed trying to make it perfect well what tests can I do my recommendation to you is to use what your curriculum or school gives you some schools do already testing or map testing or something at the beginning of the era benchmark testing if that's the case for you use that for a start because what you're going to find is that you can have a student who's just amazing multiplication and struggles with division sothank might be in a higher group for a while and then need to be pushed to another group where their needs will be best met so they're the test of the beginning of the year if it's a mixed skill test it gives you an idea and it gives you a starting place and that's money make your groups based on that starting data and now that they should be fluid groups they should change whenever you feel like a change would benefit the student so if you start to notice that student is far behind the rest the kids in the group then you might just go ahead and move up and I always told my students that I am going to move people around in these groups often for all different kinds of reasons and that they should not be offended by that if your school does not do some sort of pre testing benchmark testing at the beginning of the year you might consider maybe does your curriculum come with any kind of assessment some curriculums come with an exit ticket or a pre assessment and if that's the case you might go ahead and divide your groups out that way if that is not the case you're gonna have to go with your observations it's not perfect that's okay cuz you're gonna change it anyway and one thing to think about is at the beginning of the era near all you don't know your students as well and you're just going with observations from many lessons or observations even from the teacher the prior year or really just your observation from being the child in the last few days now that the first couple of weeks when you're doing centers and small groups you're going to have such a huge focus on learning the procedures and the routines and expectations then it'll be okay if you're doing some math work and that small group you realize you have a bit of a mixed ability going on you can change it the following week once they're more familiar with the routines and procedures and it not be a big deal you know most of the year have your groups in place and at the beginning of the air if it's a little bit of trial and error that's okay don't be so hard on yourself it doesn't have to be perfect because we can change it grouping should be fluid and changing here's probably that easy for myself and my students to keep track of I printed out posters that had group names when there were activities they did each day which rotations they went to each day I need and then I used a dry erase marker write the names of the students from each group it's made it easy for me to switch I could take someone from the blue group erase their name and stick them in the green group very easily and I would tend to do that on Fridays or first thing Monday not you doing the middle of the week because that can kind of disrupt the whole system but if you have to do it my way you have to do it lovely but go ahead and make a change here or there based on my observation during small-group my observation during mini lessons an observation on a recent assessment observation on an exit ticket an email from the parent saying my child's herping it by help any of these reasons might be reasons to ice which somebody from our group might even be a behavior situation where I had to on level groups and this guy's not doing so well in that particular groups or switch them to the other one is to get them away from a friend okay I always tell my students there's so many reasons I switch people from group to group and sometimes it's just because I want to see you on Monday morning I can't wait until Tuesday to see you in small group I just I would miss you too much and if your students just know you're going to change the group's from time to time they won't be offended if you move them around and you're gonna have to okay so don't be too stressed out at the beginning of the year about having a perfect grouping know that it's gonna be a little bit of trial error best judgment and then make the changes as you see them necessary all right all these posters they're editable and they're free so you can put your own group names and and group activities and things into them it's a PowerPoint that you can edit or you can just print out the ones I used and it's right so this is the link and I'll go ahead and also put the link in the video description if you want to go ahead and download this PowerPoint and then in my next couple of videos I'll be talking about this in her activities that your students might be going to but for now just know that you're going to use them to help you keep track of which students are in which group hey and let's talk about what you're gonna do with them in those I have three suggestions for you for things that you might do with your mouth grapes keep in mind you many have other ideas too but these are just things that I routinely did with my mouth grapes that really worked out well and you're going to notice but I keep it very simple I don't prepare huge lessons and and buy additional resources most of the things that I'm doing it main that small groups for things that I already have hey keep it simple the number one thing I like to do with my small groups is really continuing the lesson from our curriculum and our meaningless and remember we only have this this tiny bit of time so we really just introduced the skill and maybe got a little practice in now now that they're just being next to me at this table and I can see all of their papers all of their whiteboard whiteboards are so powerful and smoger keeps me from having a photo cut me a lot of stuff but now that I can just see them this is the time to get them practicing so if you didn't finish the problem set or workbook page that your curriculum came with during any lesson this may be the perfect time to do it right there and smolder so you can watch Maggie who's doing the problem and all a sudden you see right where she goes wrong annoys me I figured it out I know how I can help you now now I see it because you're able to see right when they're understanding it's a wrong turn and you can help them guide them through it you can model a couple of more problems for those the slower learners who the modeling you did a whole group with enough modeling you can model a couple of more but use your curriculum finish that problem set or workbook page if you're forgiving comes with it or even plug pattern from the homework pages you don't have to tell them and it came from the web page maybe a little notice maybe they won't and have them do it in whiteboards this is really handy because if the holder does it so easily and quickly then you know you can skip ahead to a problem with a little are challenging you don't have to photocopy anything new so I love whiteboards I love just finishing up our lessened so you is what you were given in your curriculum definitely number one thing we use white boards so much in a small group because it's an easy way for me to just get them a problem even from a task card set I never had a chance to use with them a homework sheet that they may or may not be doing a problem set we didn't complete even a problem went from the lesson that we never got to okay use those things the second thing that I absolutely loved use in my maths mockers his manipulatives I love manipulatives I think it's so important for both kinesthetic and visual learners I don't use them in my whole group very often because it takes so much time to give every student the manipulatives on them all get them out use them and make sure that they using them correctly put them back put them away that takes up too big of a chunk of time generally in my mini lesson but during small group it's fantastic they're right in front of me and I keep my manipulatives that I use often I keep little baggies of them right there at small group table so in an instant when I see whoa okay they're struggling with this we can just pull out the place value disks or base ten blocks or counters and just model it with something tangible right inside of them and then they can model it and then maybe you have to get good at modeling it I can have them draw a picture a little more abstract on their write board and then when we've gotten past that now maybe we're ready to take the numbers and solve I'm able to go through that process with them and able to see what they're doing I can make sure that they understand how to use the manipulative make sure that they understand the skill and if we only get through one problem but we're able to solve it with manipulatives pictures and numbers and they leave my group feel like oh I get it did it's a successful group even if we didn't complete twelve problems on a worksheet so successful group sao paulo's manipulatives during your smaller time to give them a problem and happened show it to you okay if they're struggling to show it to you model it again and again third thing that i really enjoyed using in my small groups is my math a direct notebook i occasionally use this whole group but it tends to be too kind consuming for a whole group lesson so it's fabulous with my small group once you've taught them the basic cuts the simple interactive notebook not one that's all artsy fartsy but one that simple cuts right straight to business once they kind of know what to expect you can stick the paper on your back table and as they're transitioning to small group they just take scissors and start cutting before you even started giving directions because they know what to expect so i love to use things that have very simple cuts i don't do these every day by any math stretch of the imagination but i do like to do them after we've been working on a skip for a while if my lower learners can still grab the manipulatives help them solve these if they need to I might have students who are still drawing pictures on the right board and other students who are ready to just take these numbers and solve with the algorithm so everyone can be at their own place i watch sort of like an assessment for me I watch them I flip a couple of these over while they're working oh good oh good she's got it excellent we're so ready to move on in this group and they've created a resource for themselves so that later on when they are doing centers on area and perimeter even though work domineering perimeter in our smaller time they will be able to go back to this and go I'm getting Arian perimeter mixed up again I can't quite remember which ones which and they can go back to these activities and review so they're creating a resource they're providing you a little assessment they're getting extra practice and it's so engaging it's fabulous my kinesthetic learner getting to cut and glue but you'll notice it's not like arts either cutesy kids to color really and they don't color at all there's nothing but math for them to do but it's just done in a new and unique way so much more fun better worksheet so I like to throw these activities in from time to time and help them to create it wasn't a scrapbook of the things that they have learned this year in math that's a really fun thing to do with your math groups besides working with whiteboards a manipulatives the interactive notebook activities that you saw those come from my Mayan notebook bundle which is fantastic perfect for third grade and there's also components that would work well with second and fourth grade so I will also link this resource in the description of the video so I hope these tips help you to get your groups organized and think of what you might do with those particular groups my next video is all going to be about the schedule how many groups you're gonna meet with each day for how long where will everyone else go while you're meeting with those groups so I hope you'll join me for my next video bye guys

Channel: Not So Wimpy Teacher

Views: 11,745

Rating: 4.875 out of 5

Keywords: Not So Wimpy Teacher, Math Centers, Interactive notebooks, Math Workshop, 2nd grade, 3rd grade, 4th grade, 5th grade, second grade, third grade, fourth grade, fifth grade

Id: jCxpo1HFBz0

Length: 18min 12sec (1092 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 25 2018