
After recess, my students do their Number-Sense Routine. This is a 20ish minute chunk of time dedicated to completing one page of the Number Sense booklets, and then receiving formative feedback from the teacher. It takes a few weeks to get the routine running smoothly, so be patient with yourself and your students!
This is what it looks like in my classroom.
After I collect my students from where they are lined up outside, we come in and the students wash their hands/use the bathroom/get a drink of water/hang up their coats - all the regular things that students do after a break.
The Number Sense booklets are laid out on a table, and the students know that they need to take their pencils and their booklets, and complete one page of their Number Sense booklet. I set the classroom timer for 10 minutes, and the students know that when the timer goes off, it is expected that they are finished with that one page. (If a student cannot complete one page in 10 minutes, it gives me a heads up that the work might be too difficult for them, and I check in with that student)
Perhaps at this point a short explanation of why only “one page per day” would be helpful. The reason that students are instructed to complete just one page is so that the teacher has time to give effective formative feedback to each student in the class. If a student were to complete multiple pages, it would mean that the feedback portion of the lesson would take too long and the whole routine would fall apart.
When student take between 5 to 10 minutes to complete their page, and the routine takes 20-25 minutes, it means that there is 15 minutes of empty time to be filled. There are different things that you can do with this time, I will tell you what works best for my class.
At the beginning of the year, I teach my students some quality math games, and they know that when they are finished their page, they can play these games with other students. They also know that when I call them to mark their work, that they have to quickly come and do the marking with me. It’s important, therefore, that the activity can be interrupted so that the students can come quickly when asked. Again, this prevents the routine from taking too long.
I do change up the math games throughout the year so that they don’t get boring. Sometimes, students ask me if they can read or catch up on homework during this time. I usually say yes to this.
About 5 minutes into the routine, I begin marking the student work. I look around the classroom and notice who is already finished. I go to their desk (or in my classroom, their table) and call the student back to their seat so that they are with me when I mark their work. Once I have the early finishers marked, I usually stand at a table and announce that I am marking the work at “this” table. Students leave their activity and wait for me to go around the table and mark their work.
I make my way around the classroom and give formative feedback to each student. I notice that the students who are waiting for me to make their work listen carefully to what I am saying to their classmates. The students know that they can learn from the feedback that others are receiving.
When I have marked a student’s work, they put away their pencil and their booklet and know that they can re-join the math game. When I see that I have only a few more booklets to mark, I announce that it is time to put the math games away, and students clean up while I am finishing up the marking.
I have found that giving daily formative feedback to each student has been a game-changer both for me as a teacher, and for my students as learners. Working at a “just-right” level means that each student is experiencing a great deal of success. The students look forward to hearing my feedback and feel proud of themselves that they are progressing in their math.
I didn’t always do my Number-Sense Routine like this, there have been a number of adjustments that I made along the way. Each time I changed things up, I kept the things that were working and changed the things that didn’t. In the end, this rendition of my Number-Sense Routine seems to be the best combination of efficiency, learning, and engagement from my students. I don’t expect that it will work in exactly the same way for each classroom, but I hope that by explaining how I do things, you can take what works for you, and design the rest of the routine so that it works best in your class.
What does your Number Sense Routine look like? Are your students playing math games in the time between finishing their work and receiving feedback?
Comments