Focus on Fluency: Happy Counting

I have been reviewing Eureka Math to see if it would be a good resource for our teachers to use next year. One strength that the program has is fluency routines. Each day there are awesome routines that teachers can use to build fluency in counting and operations. Here is 1 of them:

Happy Counting

Explanation of Signals:

Count up                                          

Count down                                              

Stop

1) Tell students what you want them to count by and what number to start on (example: by ones starting at zero)
2) Point up as students count, signal to stop, and switch directions. Continue, mixing up.
3) Students play for 30 seconds with a partner.


This could also be a fun brain break for students to get up, move around, and play with friends. Try it out and let me know what you think!

Cognitively Guided Instruction Book Study

Since winter break, many more teachers have begun working on a CGI problem solving block. It is so exciting to see the work that our students are doing, all the strategies that they are showing, and the conversations that they are having about Math. With all these new trials, there have been many questions come up that have pushed my own knowledge of CGI.

I got the newest CGI book a couple months ago and reading it has been on my list for quite some time. I know that there are some amazing things in it and I cannot wait to learn more about CGI and continue to work with our teachers. I am going to read each chapter and create a post with a summary of that chapter, key takeaways, and some questions to think about. I think it will be really helpful to have a reference for what is in the book and where to find information about certain topics. I will begin reading and posting tomorrow and go chapter by chapter through the book.

Please feel free to order the book and read along with me :)

Unit Planning Template

Welcome back! I hope you all had a restful winter break. It has been so great to see teachers and students back and working hard this week.

On Monday, the math planners met and worked on Quarter 3 planning. We focused on planning at the unit level to ensure we are starting at the most basic level of the standard and working our way up the highest rigor point.

To help us, we used this unit planing template. It allows us to see the mastery items for each day lined up and check the progression. Are we getting at every part of the standard? Is the order logical? Can we accomplish this in one day?

Here is an annotated version of the template with instructions. Teachers are doing such a great job using this to plan and I am excited to see the results for our first unit test!