Let’s face it, our classrooms are filled with 28-32 little faces who all need different levels of instruction. You might get lucky and have 2 or 3 who can fit nicely together in a group, but realistically you have to mesh where you can. I have been in your shoes of asking how can I possibly fit in everything I need to and give the students what they need 🙋♀️. Outside the box thinking and creativity are needed to fit this puzzle together every year.
I want to cover 1 general concept of math, reading, and writing at a time. I will try my best to adapt a standard that can translate from grade to grade. I know it is not easy to move from one grade standard to another, if you are not familiar with all of the standards. I spent 9 years in a multi-grade classroom and became well versed in all 3 grade levels and standards. If this is new to you or you are just diving into the multiple layers of need within your classroom, give yourself grace and space to navigate this. It takes time and a lot of practice.
I will begin with math fluency(Grade.OA.A-C). Every classroom K-5 will have students who still need work on fact fluency. I will generalize it with addition and multiplication. When we approach facts with students we cannot just simply ask them memorize the fact. We truly want them to learn how to manipulate the numbers in order to build on these facts. With addition you begin by exploring adding items, object, blocks, etc. to make a larger quantity. Starting with looking at 5 or 10 frames you can build number recognition, then scaffold into the concept of adding more. The first example gives 3 + 2 = 5. Students will mentally manipulate the 2 dots to fill in the 5 frame. You can use an addition chart to say if 3 + 2 = 5 what else could we say (commutative property 2 + 3 = 5). As you continue to manipulate numbers students can move into more complex addition by taking more than 1 addend and making 5s or 10s.
Take the example of the sets of dots colored based on quantity. Students could begin by counting 1 by 1 as a simple activity or move into more abstract/complex activities of manipulating the 8 + 2 = 10, 5 + 5 = 10, and so on. This exercise allows students to make friendly numbers in order to get the sum of multiple addends. The final example of fact fluency would be to manipulate addends like 10 frames, cubes, blocks, etc to start abstractly adding doubles or doubles 1 more/ doubles 1 less. The end goal is for your students to meet the standards of adding fluently with 5, 10, or 20. Giving multiple ways of reaching that end goal is your interventions. Every student doesn’t need to do the exact same center in the same way. Allow 1 center material to be used multiple ways to grow in rigor.
Taking the levels of complexity from addition, you can transfer that into multiplication with the same layers of scaffolding. Start with your most concrete lesson and move into abstraction. The end goal is to have student work fluently with numbers and learn to manipulate them.
Let’s dive into multiplication fact fluency. Again, your end goal is for students to see groups/sets of numbers and to manipulate the numbers in a way to bring groups/sets together. Starting with arrays and sets of numbers, students begin to explore the concept of multiplication is just repeated addition. As you progress through complexity, students will use the commutative and distributive properties.
You can bring in Math Talks with Splat (watch this YouTube on using Splat for multiplication). Such a great way to get students to begin mental, abstract multiplication! Splat is a great use for any Math Talk, not just multiplication. Try it out and let me know how you used them in your classroom. I am always looking for new ways to engage students and love learning what is working in other classrooms.
Now that we covered math fluency for addition and multiplication, what are ways you could add interventions and complexity to subtraction, division, or any other math concept? I would love to hear ways you are providing interventions, accommodations, modifications, and layers of complexity to your centers or guided math groups! Guided Math is another blog post for the future. Click the images below to get some free resources and some from my store.
Part 2 will cover phonics, reading, and writing. Stay tuned!
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Very informative and well written!
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