Guided MATH Book Study {Chapter 1}

I started seeing this Guided Math book study in blog land and I couldn't wait to find out what it was all about! I ordered my book immediately. I received my book on Monday {YESTERDAY}, went to Office Max to get it bound on Tuesday {TODAY} {KINDA EXPENSIVE...ALMOST 5 BUCKS! I DONT KNOW IF I WOULD DO IT AGAIN BUT IT DID MAKE IT SO MUCH EASIER TO READ!!}, and started reading right away! I don't want to get ahead of myself so I stopped at chapter 1 so I could blog about it!

Chapter 1: Guided Math: A Framework for Mathematics Instruction
This chapter briefly went over the instructional components of the Guided Math model.

• A Classroom Environment of Numeracy
• Morning Math Warm-ups and Calendar Board Activities
• Whole-Class Instruction
• Guided Math Instruction with Small Groups of Students
• Math Workshop
• Individual Conferences
• An Ongoing System of Assessment

Conferencing! I had never heard of conferencing for math... reading?? yes but not math... this is very interesting for me because it will bring me closer to finding out WHERE my students truly are!

Assessing! The author {Laney} talks about assessing where your students are and then take your teaching from there. Yes, I have heard of this before. I think I took a bunch of classes on it during college but I honestly didn't do much pre-assessing this year but after reading chapter one she pointed out WHY we need to and HOW it helps our teaching and our kiddos learning {I can't wait to read the chapter that focuses on this!}

Math Workshop! Teaching your kiddos how to do it and training them so they could be successful! I think I could do this since Daily 5 was so successful last year :) I am interested in seeing what Laney says about the activities to use during Math Workshop. Could I use "math centers", fluency games {cards, dice, dominoes}, or something more specific to what I'm teaching??? I can't wait to read about this chapter!

The chapter also explains how often you need to do what!

Conference 3 times a week, Whole class instruction 4 times a week, small goups/workshop 3 times a week... of course this is just an example and she stresses that it is very flexible! You change it according to the needs of your students!

Overall, I am really excited to get into this book study and read, Guided Math! Obviously, I want to read A LOT of chapters! ;)

At the end of this chapter, the author posed some Review and Reflect questions:

Think of the way you currently teach mathematics.

1. What aspects of it are successful?

The aspects that are successful is how we recognize that math is full of patterns and always go back to that {fact families, skip counting, addition/subtraction}, using manipulatives, being able to draw pictures of our thinking, being able to talk about the steps needed to solve a problem, etc. 

    2.  What aspects of it trouble you? Why?

The aspects that troubled me the most was that I was always teaching whole group. I taught from my projector/camera and when I was done with a problem, I would walk around and assist wherever I could. The problem was that I don't have 24 teachers in my room! It was just me and I had such a hard time getting to every one of my students! I also had a variety of levels in my first grade SEI classroom. From kiddos that could barely recognize and write numbers/numerals to little ones that could add and subtract fluently by using a variety of strategies! Another aspect is that I was very limited on time. Since I am teaching in a SEI classroom with a 4 hour language block in a school where the hours are 8-2 with lunch AND special EVERY day, I was left with a very minimal amount of time for math...usually only 25-30 minutes! BLAH!!

  3. Does your math instruction lead your students to a deep conceptual understanding of the math standards that they are learning? If so, what are you doing that contributes to that? If not, how do you think you would like to change your teaching?

Yes, I believe my math instruction leads my students to a deep conceptual understanding! I really try to have my kiddos draw pictures and talk about what we are doing every day. For example, if we are adding double digit numbers, we would make two groups and draw a picture of how many are in each group. We would then add the ones place, then the tens place to find out the sum. I would remind my students that we could only have one digit in the ones place so if we had 10 or more we had to regroup, we would then draw a circle over the 10 objects we drew and moved them {with an arrow} to the tens place. I'm sure this sounds very confusing but I will add a picture soon! :) I feel that my students really got the concept of regrouping and WHY we had to do that! They were also able to explain their work! I would still like to grow in this area with other math topics!

I am linking up to Primary Inspired!

Go check it out! Tell me what you think about Guided Math! Does this interest you? Do you do something similar? I would love to know any ideas! Be on the look out for my chapter 2 post coming soon! :)

Have a lovely night! I am off to bed!