Tuesday, November 1, 2011

GUEST post...with FREEBIES!!

Well I am happy to say I am feeling a little better. I taught for a day and a half with little to no voice, not easy at all. So as promised my guest post...Katie from Queen of the First Grade Jungle! 
Isn't her family just adorable!

I know most if not all of you are familiar with her and her AMAZING blog! I am pretty sure I owe at least half of my followers to her. I am so glad she "found me", she has been helpful, up lifting, and inspiring! I hope you all enjoy!

Click here to follow her!


Hi this is Katie from Queen of the First Grade Jungle. I am here to share a little bit about how I do math work stations and math journals.  I had been searching for a new way to do math for a few months when work stations just fell into my lap.  I mean literally everyone on the blogs was talking about Debbie Diller and her work stations.  I read the book this summer and fell in love.  I started implementing work stations the second week of school and now I could never go back to the old way of pencil paper filling out work book pages.   


Here is how I organize my work stations.  Looks WAY more complicated than it is.  My kids go to 2 stations a day—would love to make it 3 but I don’t have the time in my schedule right now.  Meeting with Mrs. King is stations 6 and 12.  When I grouped kids I made sure that the 4 that come to me a close in skill level. Making me stations 6 and 12 are also great because  I am meeting with 4 kids in a small group and 8 students a day.  I also like this because I am meeting with each child every 3 days.




I have my baskets on these low shelves.  My kids do a great job getting to them and cleaning up.  We rarely have to review procedures.  I like to introduce a new station in between the 2 stations.  Meaning, after I have kids clean up a station we meet at the carpet and I have two students demonstrate the new work station.  I like to keep games very simple but exciting (different manipulatives or seasonal) at the same time. I refuse to spend that precious time I have with small groups re-explaining how to play a game.   As long as the kids are productively working with numbers/maipulatives, I don’t stop them to correct.  For example, two kids were  supposed to be playing Top-It with number cards to 50.  When I looked over they were organizing the numbers sequentially on the floor.  I almost jumped up to correct them, but I caught OCD me and reminded myself that their work  was productive and developmentally appropriate.  We also have a standard that talks about sequential order of numbers- somewhere I know we do :) 

Just to give you an idea of what my work stations look like this week-

Station 1-  Sorting Addition facts based on their sums. http://thefirstgradeparade.blogspot.com/2010/10/couple-of-math-things.html

Station 2- Board game to practice addition and subtraction Link--http://thefirstgradeparade.blogspot.com/2010/10/math-board-games.html (okay- I LOVE Cara Carroll)

Station 3- Find the Bone (computer game to work on number sense) Link --http://www.oswego.org/ocsd-web/games/DogBone/gamebone.html

Station 4- Nickel/Penny Grab (Students grab a handful of nickels and pennies and put them on a cute piggy I printed out to count them). 

Station 5-Envisions computer game (Measuring - incorporates prediction and actual measurement)

Station 6-Meet with Mrs. King

Station 7- Tally Mark Memory (I have cards with tally marks to 20 and number cards. Students play standard Memory game matching the tally marks to the numbers).

Station 8- Addition Top It (Play like War. Students pull two cards and work addition problem on the board.  Highest sum wins).

Station 9- Clear the board (Students “clear their board based on the sums)Link- http://www.kidscount1234.com/mathcentersandgames.html
 
Station 10- Tally around the Room (http://justaddclipart.blogspot.com/2011/07/wow.html)

Station 11- Measurement Basket (Lots of objects and kids practice with nonstandard measurement-paperclips, craft sticks, cubes)

Station 12- Meet with Mrs.King

Phew- I hope that was helpful.  I think it is important to say that some of my games stay in for SEVERAL rotations.  I think that kids need practice, practice, practice, with those math facts! 

After setting all of this up, I felt the need for a word problem of the day.  So I created the math journal. 


 

Okay I didn’t invent the math journal, but you know what I mean :)
It is a combination of calendar, number of the day, and a word problem or flashback type problem.   

You can download them here.   

There are 20 prompts.  I plan on making more once I gauge what my kids need more practice with later.  I have really enjoyed the math journal, because I don’t catch my kids zoning out like they were before! I hope you enjoy!