A Peek into Math Workshop

It's Alabama football gameday, y'all!! The man in our house has 2 different football gameday shows on-SEC Network and ESPN College Gameday. To say that we are excited about football season in this house is an understatement. I'm excited I get to go to the game with Shawn's family today! Until then, we will sleep late and drink coffee and celebrate Saturday mornings. :)

I wanted to paint a picture of what it is like in our room during math workshop. We use Investigations as our math curriculum which is based on a lot of hands-on games and discussions about math. Friday was a great example of this type of learning because we learned 2 different math games and had a great conversation about doubles facts. But as I was walking around my room monitoring groups and talking over the loud math conversations occurring, I couldn't help but laugh at the organized chaos of it all. I just had to share!
Here is the layout of our math block:
1. Introduction/Review of topic
2. Partner practice
3. Whole-group discussion
4. Partner practice/individual practice
5. Math center

Here are some pictures of our class in the "partner practice" part of our math block. We learned a game called "Double It". Player 1 draws a card from a deck and doubles that number. Then, you plot the double, or sum, on a chart on the game recording sheet. The goal was for the kids to see a pattern in doubles answers-even numbers, or "counting by 2s" as my kids like to say. For the most part, our class works pretty well in partners/groups.

I use these sticks to choose partners. Each stick has a name. I pull 2 at random and TA-DA! you have a partner. I have a strict rule that the kids ARE NOT allowed to complain or show any negative emotion about their partner. If you do, you don't get to participate in our activity that day. I tell my kids all the time, "You don't have to be BFF with everybody in this class, but you WILL be respectful and kind!" I love this sticks. 

Clipboards and carpet squares are a normal thing for our math workshop. I tell them to choose any space around the room (except for under tables and in front of the door), and they can use a clipboard to write on and carpet square to sit on. These girls are showing a great example!

This cracked me up. They built a fort with the desk chairs. I checked, and they were playing the game correctly and talking about doubles-not playing incorrectly in their creative space. 7 year olds are super. 

Here's a little bit of craziness for you. Laying all over the rug, cards everywhere - but learning is happening!

That's a small look into our math block! It's still a work in progress (5 weeks into school), but they are getting better every day!