Math Workshop-Finally figured out!

Amanda Madden is my hero.  Seriously.  Not only is she the sweetest and one of the most generous, but she has fabulous ideas that I just love stealing borrowing for my classroom!  I just wish I could actually work with her!

I have been, lets spell it out, s-t-r-u-g-g-l-i-n-g with math this year.  Due to my inclusion and ec schedule, the absolute only time I could fit in math was the end of the day.  Grrreatt.  A bunch of 7 and 8 year olds, after lunch and recess, learning math.  This what I imagined..

Not to mention that means we basically had 30-40 minutes to get everything in at the beginning of the year (due to learning afternoon pack up routines).  Now, I am pushing to get in 50-60 minutes, like really pushing.  Since we are filtering in from lunch/recess and kids need to get water/go to the bathroom I was losing some valuable time for our lesson.  Whole group just wasn't working.  We did a little mini lesson and then they had independent work to complete before going to hands on math or some kind of technology.  Most of them weren't even getting their independent work done due to the amount of time.

So I went on the hunt and saw that Amanda/ Teaching Maddenness (of course) had just posted about her math routine.  Aaand the gates of heaven open! Aaaaaaaaaaaaa {Here} is the post about her Math Workshop.

Feeling inspired, I immediately got to planning and implemented on Monday!  I only have 3 groups in my room which makes it a little easier on me! :)  Here's what my kiddos do... (I threw this together super fast so it's not cute like Amanda's, which I will be stealing!)

What's really great about having 3 groups/4 rotations and starting this after Recess is the fact that I can get everyone settled into their first rotation (none of which are with me), solve any recess problems, make sure everyone makes it to the bathroom, and even work with any kids individually who might be struggling a little more.  I love how it is working so much! I wish I could have started it earlier in the year!

We rotate every 10 minutes right now and I feel like it's a good amount of time for them to sustain doing 1 activity.  I think if we could get it to 15 that would be ideal but I don't forsee that happening unless we cut recess short (a big no-no!).  What's great about this though is that if I feel like my high kids have it, I can give them extra time to work on their task or another activity to work on and extend my group time with the other groups.  

Awesome right? Now I love math again! Hooray.

Now, if someone wants to pace out common core math for me, it would be even more awesome. Our curriculum stinks and is not even CC aligned!