Summer Spotlight Series: Fun In Room 4B

I am loving these guest posts during

So many great ideas!  

Today I am so excited to have one of my very best and first bloggy friends, Elizabeth from Fun in Room 4B! She is an AWESOME 4th grade teachers with such great ideas!  Not to mention that she is incredibly crafty.    I can't wait to meet her at the Carolina Bloggy Meetup!!  

Be sure to make her feel at home (and visit her blog after your done reading)!

Hi everyone, Elizabeth here from Fun in Room 4B:

Amber was looking for guest bloggers and of course I told her yes!  She was one of my very first bloggy buddies and I'm always learning something unique and useful from her.

I wanted to share with you some of the ideas I have regarding Math Workshop/Math Rotations/Math Stations.  See, I have to say all of these because what I do in my classroom is a jumble of all three "methods".  To save energy, I will call it Math Rotations.  (Which is what I call it in my classroom...simply because the students "rotate" between 4 different "stations".

I started teaching this way last January and love it!

First, I found the Math Rotations Board from Clutter-Free Classroom.  It uses the acronym MATH for organizing how your "rotate" from one activity to the next. {I love a good acronym.}

M-Math Facts 

A-At Your Seat

T-Teacher's Choice

H-Hands On

Here's a picture of my board (purchased from Clutter-Free Classroom):

 

Let me break down what we do at each "station".

Math Facts- This is where I have my students work on Math 4 Today.  This is a daily drill that is spiraled curriculum reviewing all fourth grade skills.  There are only 4 questions to complete, so when they are finished with that, they start their At Your Seat Work.

At Your Seat- This is where my students complete the Independent Practice from the math book.  However, this is the work from the previous day's small group work.  So, for example in the picture above, my students were completing lesson 16-5.  I had taught 16-5 the day BEFORE in the Teacher's Choice Station.

Teacher's Choice- This is my small group instruction time.  My students are grouped into 4 different groups based on their ability (mainly their MAP testing data with a little teacher judgement thrown in there, too).  Again, I teach the lesson that the students will be completing the NEXT day during their "At Your Seat" station.  So, in the picture above, I was teaching 16-6.  Make sense?

Hands On- This is what most think of as real "Stations" or "Centers".  I use this time to have my students work with a variety of materials.  As you can see on the board above, I am lucky enough to have 3 iPods.  One is from the school, one is my son's old iPod and the last one is my iPhone-Yes, I let my students use it for stations-gasp!  I also have math sharks (electronic flashcards), Hot Dots and other "hands-on" materials. 

I differentiate their hands on work, too.  For example, when using the Hot Dots, I have three different levels for those.  I've separated them by level and put them in index card accordian file (like for coupons) that I got from the Target Dollar Bin...love that Dollar Bin.  (Sorry that I don't have a picture for that.)

As you can see in the picture above, each group (Group 1, Group 2, Group 3, Group 4) all rotate through all stations during each math lesson.  For example, using the picture above, Group 1 will go to stations in this order:

1st-Math Facts
2-Teacher's Choice
3-At Your Seat
4-Hands On

 If you are interested in reading more about how I made it work in my classroom, you can go to {here} and read more.


Thanks, Amber, for letting me guest post.  I enjoyed sharing what I do in math.  Seeing as that is my only subject next year, I'd better like talking about it :)