Presents and It’s Not Even My Birthday!

I love it when I get presents in the mail.  Even when I do the ordering, it is still so much fun to open up that brown cardboard box and find exactly what I have been waiting for.  Today’s delivery did not disappoint! 

 A friend (and colleague) of mine knew that I had been reading up on Guided Math all summer long.  She has shown an interest in jumping in with me.  She showed me the book, Guided Math Made Easy (Carson Dellosa) and I had to go online and order it right away.  The book is broken down into five strands:

Numbers and Operations

Algebra

Measurement

Geometry

Data Analysis & Probability

Within each section there are varying lessons.   For example, in the Measurement section there is a lesson on telling time to the nearest quarter hour.  When you open to that lesson, there are 4 accompanying pages. 

Page 1 – The Lessons (all on one page)

* objective

* materials needed

* mini-lesson

* lessons for 3 groups (low, medium, high)

Part 2 – The Worksheets/Activities (separated into 3 pages)

1 worksheet or activity has been provided for each group to complete

The second book is one that a few bloggers who did the Guided Math book study this summer strongly recommended: Number Sense Routines: Building Numerical Literacy Every Day in Grades K-3 by Jessica F. Shumway.  Here’s the blurb from Stenhouse:

I am excited to find out how well it will mesh with our warm-ups that I have planned after we get through Unit 1. 

Speaking of teaching math, I have 8 school days under my belt with my second graders. I wish I could tell you that I was working miracles, diving into curriculum, and ready to establish my guided math groups. However, we are still working on sustaining focus during a lesson for at least 5 min. Either way, I am still excited to dive into guided math. I need to do some small group instruction next week with telling time. I have 8 kiddos who can tell time to the nearest 15 min. with ~95%+ accuracy. They are going to work on one of the memory matching games from my Math Mania pack next week.

I have another group of about 4 kiddos who have the basics, but confuse the hands and 6 kids who have the minutes down, but get confused about the hour hand when it is between two numbers. That leaves me with one more group of students who need some intense instruction.  I want to provide meaningful, engaging activities for the kiddos to complete while I am working with their peers.  I don’t want it to just be busy work, but it would make the most sense if all kids could be working on time games or activities.  Any ideas for me?  Oh, and if you are reading either of these two books, I would love to chat with you about them as I go 🙂