Launching Math Workshop Part 2

If you missed part one of this series, be sure to check it out here to find out what I do on the first day of math workshop.

Read on to find out what the 2nd day of math workshop looks like & grab a free lesson.

For me, day 2 is all about *modeling*. When I taught first grade, I did so much modeling at the beginning of the year. Who can show me how to push your chair in correctly? Let’s practice…

With 4th graders, some of those basics don’t require as much explicit instruction, but when it comes to workshop I channel my inner first grade teacher. Workshop for math is new for a lot of my students - I have to be very clear in what I expect. 

I start off by briefly explaining to the students what math workshop will look like this year:

*We'll use Google Slides and Google Classroom for their directions 

*They'll watch an instructional video for their lesson

*I'll be pulling groups every day

Then we pull up our first set of Google Slides. Since our 1st unit is place value, I introduce workshop with a place value review.

Every set of activities will start with a video. I've found my kids focus better watching a short video than they do with the distractions of a whole class mini-lesson. I can also get the information across in a shorter time in a video. For more on how I use video lessons, check out this post

I'll show the video whole class and we'll pause the video and fill out our anchor charts together. (I make a student copy of the anchor chart for each video). I do lots of "think alouds" during the video and make sure the kids really understand what's expected of them while they're watching an instructional video. 

After we've all completed our anchor charts & glued them into our journals, we make an anchor chart on watching instructional videos. 

Then I have the students think-pair-share what they think they'll be doing for the next activity in the Google Slide. They work on the 2nd activity, which incorporates their iPads, on their own. During this time I walk around the room & provide feedback. 

Once everyone has finished, we come back together and discuss the final activity in Google Slides. Again, they complete it on their own as I walk around the room. 

Once they're finished, we come back together and discuss things that went well & things that need to change for the next day. 

I tried to choose activities that all students should be able to complete independently, even if they're below level. 

You can download all of the materials for these activities here for FREE.

Stay tuned for part 3 - gradually releasing responsibility to students!