Daily Schedule - Guided Math {What is the Rest of the Class Doing?}

I did a {post} a few weeks ago about how I teach my small groups in math, but what are the other students doing while I am working with that group?? Today I am going to share with you what the rest of the class is doing while I am working with a math group. Here's a look at my daily schedule. Each group goes to two rotations a day (about 15 minutes each). At the end of the day I just move the station cards down to the next group. You can find my Guided Math cards {here} and the shape cards for free at the bottom of {this post}.

I have five stations for Guided Math: Work with Teacher, Math By Myself, Math with Someone, Math Work, and Math with Technology. I split up my students into five groups based on similar abilities. I write these groups on the group cards. I change these groups frequently because abilities can change based on the math concept we are learning. I count myself as one of the rotations this time. This is different than how I set up my Guided Reading because I see my math groups the same amount of time each week. I see each math group twice during the week (unless it's a short week).

Here are a few ideas of what the students are doing during each of these rotations. The following pictures are a mixture from my last three years in first grade. Once I get into my new Science Lab room set up, I'll show you how each of these areas will be set up this year.

These are collection of hands-on math centres that students can complete on their own. At the beginning of the year I use some of these math stations that I shared {here} four years ago--it is still one of my most popular posts to date! Lots of these ideas come from my Math Centre Packs or freebies I find on other blogs. I give students a handful of options to choose from. I have about 8-10 activities available at a time and students can choose whichever activity they would like to do for that rotation. They must complete the activity and clean it up before moving to a new activity. I like giving many options because I don't have to change them out as frequently and this avoids having to have "early finisher" activities. If they finish one activity, they can just choose another one until time is up.

Play-Do Math Mats are always a big hit at the beginning of the year!

These activities are usually games that can be played with a partner. I set it up the same way as Math By Myself--there are usually about 4 options for students to choose from. They work in pairs (or a group of three if there is an odd number) and complete one game before choosing another. I start the year off by teaching simple games such as BUMP and Ten Frame War. They are easy to learn and fun for the students!

Math Work is another independent station. Students will each have their own math work book to work on. I like to start the year with a number book, such as this Number Practice from Miss Kindergarten. It has great number skills to practice and the page style stays the same, so students can complete the pages independently and don't need. I can also differentiate this centre easily for some students by providing them with simpler or more challenging tasks.

Sometimes I might have students complete a math art or writing activity such as this shape picture we did last year:

I don't have any student computers in my classroom, so I've been collecting old iPods to use as my technology station. There will only be a max of four students in each group, so I have two old iPods, an old iPhone, and an iPad that I will load up with math apps for students to use during this time. I will just put four games that they can choose from at the bottom on the home menu. I made cute chalkboard/brights numbered backgrounds for the devices. That way I can keep of track of which student is on which device so they all get a chance to try each one.

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I just got into my new room on Monday and spent two days moving everything from my old classroom to the Science Lab. I am still super busy getting everything put away and organized. I haven't even started covering bulletin boards or putting anything up on walls yet. Ugh. So much to do! Here's what it looked like before I moved in:

This is my old classroom. See you next year! 

Here's my new room--the Science Lab! There are rows of counters and glass displays along both sides of the room. The glass displays were filled with all sorts of dead animal displays--awesome for teaching Science; not so awesome for first graders. 

Here's my front counter, whiteboards, eyewash station, and SmartBoard. Every first grade classroom needs an eyewash station, dontcha think? If this counter wasn't in the way of the projector and whiteboard I could be almost be 95% happy with this new room. But we will make it work just fine, because that's what we do! ;)

These big tables were removed and my furniture was moved in. It's already starting to look like a first grade classroom. I can't wait to show you the finished product!

I'm going to post about my Morning Routine and Pack & Stack closer to back to school (students start on Sept. 9th) because I'm not sure exactly how these routines will look like in my new Science Lab classroom just yet. I will be back to touch on Problem Solving, Author Study, and Theme soon though. Stay tuned!