Setting Up A Math Block and Math Workshop With No Curriculum

You don’t have a curriculum, or a pieced-together curriculum, but how do you structure your lessons to ease your planning and set your students up for success?

This framework has four main components that you can use to suit your needs best. A warm-up, mini-lesson, or main lesson, guided math, and centers or stations.

Warm Up

A warm-up at the beginning of a lesson is a great way to support number sense,  get your students thinking about math, talking about math, and making connections with other concepts and each other.

A number talk or number sense routine is also a quick but effective way to have students listen to each other, consider other opinions, and agree and disagree respectfully.

Number sense is one of those vague, elusive terms; everyone knows students need to develop number sense, but may not be sure where to start.

The truth is that it is a combination of activities that help students develop number sense throughout the school year.

Number sense routines are generally short and allow students to talk about their thinking and hear, and learn from other students.

There are lots of different number sense routines you can implement in your classroom, such as number talks, quick images, or choral counts, but “Which One Doesn’t Belong” is one of my favorites to get students thinking and talking, especially at the beginning of the year!

Mini-Lesson or Main Lesson 

After the warm-up is either your mini-lesson or main lesson. 

Mini-Lesson

Consider a mini-lesson for small bite-sized information, like how to write an individual number, or learning about the attributes of a shape. It might consist of naming the most important features, quick practice, and/or a reflection before moving onto guided math or centers. Mini-lessons are also useful if a topic has a lot of parts. If you were learning about shapes, you might learn about circles on day 1, rectangles on day 2, triangles on day 3, squares on day 4, and compare the shapes to each other on day 5.

An example of a circle day lesson might be: show pictures of circles in the real world (this could also be your warm up using the Which One Doesn’t Belong number sense routine with three real world circles and another shape), and ask students what they notice and name the shape, provide students with circle attribute blocks they can feel, and ask them about the attributes of the circle (round, smooth, the same any way you turn it, etc.) and have them trace circles on their hand or carpet to get some sensory feedback about how to draw a circle. Then ask them questions to help them generalize circles, such as showing a small and a large circle and asking if they are the same shape, or if the circle would still be a circle if it were moved or turned.

Main Lesson

A main lesson can be similar to a mini-lesson, but require more depth or practice. An example might be if you are showing students how to systematically find all the decompositions of a given number. 

An example might be if you are working on decomposing five with two-color counters.  After the warm-up, you could have your students line up five counters with one yellow and 4 red, and ask them to count and record how many are red and how many are yellow, and continue until they have gone through all combinations. You can see a full example in this video or get 2 weeks' worth of decomposing numbers to 10 lessons here.

A lesson like that may take longer due to materials, partner work, discussions, and more.

Problem Solving

If you are using a problem-solving framework like Building Thinking Classrooms, you could replace the warm-up and lesson or mini-lesson with a quick task launch and use the rest of your math time to allow your students to solve the problem in pairs on their vertical non-permanent surfaces. After they have had time to work, close the lesson with reflection or consolidation.

If you’d like more information, you can read this post about setting up a Building Thinking Classroom framework for lower elementary, or do a larger book study.  If you are looking for non-curricular tasks to get you started, you can get them here!

Math Centers/Stations

There is no perfect number of stations; some teachers prefer to have only 2 students per activity, some 8 or more. I’ve found four to five students to be the number that works for me. They can spread out but have enough people to play games in groups of two or three.

There is a lot of discussion about having heterogeneous or homogeneous groups. There are pros and cons to both; either way, consider:

1. Having a system where students can develop independence in moving to each station, getting water, going to the restroom, etc.

2. Accessing their appropriately differentiated materials. 

3. Saving for another day or sending home work that is not completed 

When do you add new stations?

Adding too many in one day can lead to confusion; one new station a day or every two days can replace the center that has been in use the longest to keep things fresh for the students. 

How do they know where to go?

You could use a center pocket chart or digital chart that your students can refer to, or have a list of activities they need to complete for the week, for example, and they can choose when to finish each task. These are just two suggestions, and you can decide what works best for your students.

Guided Math

While the rest of your class is in centers, it is a great time to provide small group enrichment, reinforcement, or intervention. Here are some ideas on how you can decide who comes to your guided math. If your groups are homogeneous, you could have the whole group rotate together and come to you, or call certain students to your table based on the skill or concept they need enrichment or support in, based on assessments or observations.