Planning Math Groups

I've been looking at some different options for my math groups. I haven't done them before but I saw them done by a first grade teacher during my student teaching and was intrigued. With my own students last year I struggled to find a way to differentiate and to intervene with struggling students while teaching the whole class. I am excited about using math groups as a way to help with this!

I found a great blog that is all about doing math groups and gives a tons of ideas and it really helped me out. It's called Guided Math: http://guided-math.blogspot.com/. After looking at the blog and using observations I've done as a resource, I think I have decided how I'm going to set up my math block!

For the first 10-15 minutes, we will go over the previous night's homework and do a minilesson on the topic we are covering that day. Our textbook program, Envisions, has a great little video that goes with each topic--we'll probably start with a discussion about these videos each day.

Students will be set up in 3 different groups (high, medium, and low) and rotate through stations--teacher, seat work, and center. When groups come to the "teacher" station, I will review the topic we are going over and see how much help each group needs. I will do a little reteaching and practice with the students. When groups are at their "seat work" station, they will have an assignment to do-typically an assignment provided by Envisions. For centers, each student will go to a different center each day (so there will usually only be 1-2 students at each center). Centers include file folder/shoe box games, activity sheets (color by numbers, etc.), math task cards, and computer games. Each rotation will last about 10-15 minutes.

Now that I've got the rotation planned, I'm going to spend this week planning the actual activities that will go at all of the centers and the topics I will be going over with the students. Wish me luck!