Thursday, July 21, 2011

Intro to Math Menu

Thank you SO MUCH for all of your sweet support during the Daily Five posts! (Click HERE to read the D5 posts!) Many of you said that you were interested in Math Menu and I promised you Math Menu posts would be coming soon! :) So sorry to keep you waiting...I have been working in my room with my sweet hubs, who has been on vacation this week! I needed his muscles to paint, hang, and glue! Who WOULDN'T want to spend their vaca in a first grade classroom??!! :)

Since I adored the HECK out of D5 last year, my team and I sat down to brainstorm how we could make our math block look like our reading block and came up with Math Menu! I mean, D5 was going sooooo smoothly...why couldn't our math block look the same way???

So, Math Menu was born! Now, there are lots of Math Menus out there! I am DEF not claiming to have created this! We called it a "menu" because the kiddos get to CHOOSE their station, just like in Daily Five. All WE did was sit down with The Daily Five book and list ALL of the things that our firsties were expected to complete at some point during the math block. Math journals, IXL, spiral review, OH MY! So much to fit in, such little time! BUT...Math Menu makes it all better! :)

I will give a quick overview (like I did with Daily Five) and then I will go in to detail about each "station" in my next 5 posts!

Our Math menu takes about 45 minutes. We do Calendar, Daily Data, and Number Talks for 15 minutes before Specials, and then start Math Menu when we get back!
Mini Lesson - 15 minutes
Work Session -12 minutes
Check in (choose choice for second session) - 5 minutes
Work Session - 12 minutes
By the end of the week, the students have been to each station at least 2 times! :)

Here's the scoop ~
5 Parts of The Daily Five (loosely!) translated to math:

Read to Self (Independent Work) ~ MOUNTAIN MATH
This is where the spiral review comes in! Last year, we did ADD Math.








This is a great spiral review, BUT a lot of our kiddos finished QUICKLY! Sooo....I am going to use ADD Math in my small groups and we are using Mountain Math this year! I will post more about this tomorrow!

Work on Writing ~ MATH JOURNALS
Students will solve word problems and write about Daily Data in their journals!

Read to Someone ~ MATH GAMES
Instead of reading a book with a partner, they will play a math game!

Word Work ~ NUMBER WORK
This is where our traditional "center activities" fit in! The best way to describe what we put in this station is basically a game or activity with manipulatives with a recording sheet!

Listen to Reading ~ COMPUTERS (IXL) and iPAD (Math apps)

SO, there you have it! What do you think???? I will explain Math Menu more in detail in my next 5 posts! STAY TUNED!

Today is the LAST DAY to enter the giveaway for my 3 TpT activities! PS - The Pizza! Pizza! mini unit has a Pizza Parts fraction game that would be PERFECT for Math Menu! :) I will choose the winners tonight!

Up next...Mountain Math (spiral review station in Math Menu!)

15 comments:

Kim said...

Wow! I'm a HUGE Daily 5 fan and have read about this same concept with Math. You explained it so well and it is really "jazzin'" me to give it a try! Our district does Everyday Math. I am most interested in reading more on Mountain Math and the spiral review. Keep it coming and thanks for sharing!

alexa said...

Thank you so much for sharing, I was waiting for this post...BUT now I can't wait for the next five :) I now want to use your math menu in my classroom. Thank you sooooo much!

Jodi said...

Love this! Thank you so much for taking the time to share and explain how your Math Menu works!

Ms. Brown said...

I love this! I cannot wait to read the details!! Thanks for sharing!
www.teachhappiness.blogspot.com

Kristin said...

Hi Kelli - Loving all of this stuff! Keep it coming!!!! You commented over on my blog about carpet spots and some kind of vinyl flooring???? You said to let me know if I need more info . . . and I need more info! :) I found some rainbow colored vinyl circles that would be perfect except I would have to buy 3 dozen and it's about $100. Yikes. After what I just spent today at Target . . . can you email me??? THANK YOU SO MUCH!!
Kristin
ateenytinyteacher@yahoo.com

Ms. Male said...

Kelli.... I am loving the idea of Math Menus. I can't wait to read more about it in detail.

Also, I entered your giveaway (crossing my fingers) and I thought it was only fair that I send you over to enter mine! Thanks again for sharing your Math Menu idea!

A Day in the Life of a 2nd Grade Teacher

mandytaylor said...

Have you read anything over at the 2Sisters about Math Daily 5? I started using it last year (I think they're working on a book, but they are posting things to their website as they go)and I loved it! The five things are: math tools, strategy games, number games, math facts, and I can't remember the other one...Anyway, I can't wait to read the rest of your ideas.

Also, have you read Comprehending Math by Arthur Hyde? It talks about how we need to teach kids to think about math using the same strategies we do in reading: questioning, visualizing, making connections between math strategies, etc.

It's amazing! Thanks for sharing your great ideas!
Mandy
firstgradetothecore

Jennifer said...

OMG-I'm so glad I found you! Our school has decided to incorporate Daily 5 for math and they JUST told us. We start in a couple of weeks. I am a planner so I was starting to have a Bethenny Frankel meltdown about it, but this helps a lot!

Rowdy in First Grade

Kelli :) said...

Yay Jennifer! So glad you found me too! :) I think you will LOVE Daily Five in Math! It really makes sense!!! HA...love it...Bethenny meltdown! :) I just posted about Math Games tonight!

Unknown said...

Kelli,

Just found your blog and LOVE it! Thank you so much! Do you have any ideas for math journals, as far as prompts or do you have a journal you copy for the whole year with prompts already in them?

Unknown said...

Could you post a version of your math menu journal entries (just one page sample) in a format we can download and use to help us make our own? The one in the blog is not clear, so I can see all the questions the kids choose from. Thanks, Kelli!

Lesa Moore said...

I really love your Daily 5 Math. I can't wait for pics and more info...

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