Math Rotations and Partner Work

My school uses Math in Focus for our Math curriculum. The program uses the Singapore approach and is aligned to the Common Core State Standards for Math.  So far we have covered topics ranging from three-digit addition and subtraction, simple multiplication/division, money, fractions, and measurement. After covering a chapter/topic, I have continued to spiral in additional practice to make sure that the majority of the kids master the material. At the beginning of the year, a large portion of my Math block was direct instruction with a lot of teacher direction. Starting this semester, I've began to introduce more partner work through rotations and I am seeing great results!  I ranked students by assessment scores and created pairs of students of different ability levels. I paired the #1 student with #15, #2 with #16, #3 with #17, and so forth and so on until all students were paired.  I created a bunch of simple "games" to review money, fractions, measurement, etc... and rotated students through stations every 5-7 minutes.  It was amazing to see how independent they were! Below are some pictures of our stations.

Room Arrangement

New room arrangement! Post-Winter Break.

Life Cycles: Butterflies

I took a long hiatus from posting, but I want to get back in a routine finally! We just completed a unit on life cycles in Science. I've posted some pictures below of our class project, butterflies, and the release! It as so much fun and the information has really stuck with the kids.