Math Monday - Math Workshop, First Day Back

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Today ends our winter break and we return to the classroom.  I know how exciting it will be to have our classroom community together again.  I know we will need time to reconnect with each other.  I know we will need time to remember routines and adjust to a full day of learning.  Let's be honest - holidays, winter break and being at home does not have the same demands of living together with twenty plus friends.  

Over the past two decades, I've learned that a new year and a fresh start can be very exciting for me.   I know my students can do more but have learned that when I over plan or throw new learning at any pace on the first day back from an extended vacation, our classroom community can get run down and tired before lunch time.  

I realized this post would of been more helpful last week but I wasn't thinking about today last week.  So, how am I starting our math learning in 2015?  The students are going to meet with their new math learning partner.  They are going to share the answers to three questions with them.

1.  What do you enjoy or like about math?

2.  Is there anything you don't like about math?

3.  What's one thing you think is important for math partners to do to be successful?

Then they are going to have the opportunity to select and revisit any of the dozen math games we played the first half of the school year together.  I think revisiting something they know together will help create a safety net for them to take risks with each other.  I also want to foster conversations between math learning partners while remembering routines and content we have previously worked on.  I recently saw this information about play at our local art museum and think it's important in our classrooms, in any discipline.

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