Math Workstations

So after coming back from Christmas in Second Grade we are tackling multiplication and division. Which normally when I've been here teaching in Second Grade we have taught near the very end of the school year. So I was really nervous about how to do this. 

I took a lot of my time out of my Christmas break making plans for the next Chapter in our math curriculum (Which are here at my store) and researching math workstations. I have always wanted to do them, and never thought that I could. It seemed like such a daunting task! So after reading A LOT, I finally figured out a plan for my kids for some workstations. So..... here's what math workstations are looking like in my room so far: 

Sorry about the ultra blurry photo, I took it with my phone. BUT These are my workstations. 

Workstations

They spell out "MATH" 

M= Math Facts

A= At your seat

T= Teacher's Choice

H= Hands on

I have made tubs with the same graphics (Which are from Thistle Girl Designs) so that the kids know where their materials are for each rotation. I'll talk about rotations in just a minute. 

Inside the "Math Facts" tub I have things that will increase their math fact fluency. Ten-frames that they use for games like War and Concentration, flash cards, number cards, dice, etc. 

Inside the "At Your Seat" tub, I put a problem solving problem 1/4 sheet that they can glue into their journals and work with a partner to solve. 

"Teacher's Choice" is meeting with me at the table. We do activities according to the lesson and what the students need, as you would with reading groups. 

Inside the "Hands On" tub, I put a game, problem solving skill using manipulatives, or sort.

I also created a "When you're Finished" Tub. I put math books inside the tub that compliment the subject that we are talking about. -- hopefully this will keep them from coming to ask me "what do I do now?!"

Rotations

Let's start off with explaining that our second grade is departmentalized, which I L-O-V-E! So, I teach four sections of math: one hour each. Since I only have one hour to teach math, I was really worried in the beginning about how I was going to divide the time to allow for "workstations." 

This is what I have come up with so far, and it seems to be working & the kids are enjoying it. 

5 min: Beginning "Warm-up" Activity 
20 min: Whole Group instruction 
15 min: Workstations <--- this is where I was originally so confused. Only meet with ONE group per day. On the top of my Workstations chart where it says "rotation 1,2,3,4" Really, those are "Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday" I'll get into this more in a minute. 
15 min: Independent Practice (Could be a worksheet or Journal Activity) 
5 min: Closure/Clean-up/Exit Ticket

**My groups are named things like "Quadrilateral, Hexagon, Pentagon, Triangle" ... things that second graders need to know also. 

What I have been doing is splitting the kids off into their workstation after the whole group lesson and then meeting with my group at my big table. With meeting with only one group per day, I don't have to do *quite as much* prep for the workstations, because they only go to each station ONCE per week.

Because my schedule just has four rotations and only goes through Thursday (and the M-A-T-H allows for four rotations nicely) I left it all that way. Some weeks we don't have school on a Monday or a Friday. Or we have an assembly which throws the schedule off. Or we may just need to re-do a rotation. Having just four 'rotations' gives us a little flexibility. 

Re-reading all of this it sounds very confusing but honestly it isn't not that I've been doing it for a week, and the kids look forward to it.
Add to it that each of my second grade classes has 27 kids... it can be a confusing schedule! 

In other news ... one of my colleagues asked me to make a persuasive unit up for her and so I did really quickly last night. It is a three-week unit on persuasive letter writing geared towards Second Graders, but could be used for third or fourth. Here it is in my store:
 

Have a great weekend!! 

-Hilliary