Structure and Components
- Number Corner should be 20 minutes per day
- Bridges Activities should be 60 minutes per day
- K-2 = 90 minutes math instruction x day
- 3-5 = 75 minutes + 15 minutes Flextime Instruction x day
- All copies for Student Booklets come from Document Production Center
- Number Corner and Home Connection are optional copies
Problems and Investigations
- There are 8 Units
- 4 modules per binder
- Roughly 5 Session/ per each module
- Roughly 160 days of Bridges Instruction
- Sessions begin teacher directed and then move into work places
Work Places
- 3rd grade Work Places look like K-2
- Work Places are set up in grades K-3 for small groups
- 4-5 Work Places are more set up for partners/pairs for games and activities
- Less time is spent at Work Places, smaller grouping
Modules
- G- Grade
- U-Unit
- M-Module (Week of instruction within that unit)
- S-Session (lesson)
- 4 modules per Unit
- Unit planner
- talks about all 20 days
- materials, copies, components, charts, etc
- Module planner for the week
To Begin Your Lesson Plans……
1. Unit Overview and Planner Page
This shows you the Big Ideas to know what direction you are going.
Day, Sessions/ Work Places, frequency of activities
2. Find the Module Planner
On the back side of this page, Planning and Prep for the Week (Frontload Copies)
Paragraphs of each session of what’s going on for just the week
Each session is about 1 week
3. Session Number
Summary, Skills and Concepts, Materials, Preparation
Quite a bit of reading
4. Teacher Masters
Tells you exactly how many copies you need for your class
Not done ahead for you by the district
5. Student Book Masters
Pages that are already printed in Student Booklets provided by the district
6. Home Connections
Tells you title and when activities go home (very top)
Will tell you while you read the lesson
Every Module will follow this plan:
- Module Planner
- Session
- Teacher Masters
- Student Booklets
- Home Connection
*At the end of the month,
your unit will change and you will begin a new binder following these same steps
In your first unit you will notice
- The previous grade’s concepts
- A lot of this material is last years standards
- Building of models, tools, and strategies
- You do not have to finish each and every Module within Unit 1
- Keep moving forward throughout the sessions if your class is ready.
- Don’t take more than day to finish each session
- You have to be mindful of your entire module
- Each Day is imperative to know what you have to finish and when to keep going
- Look ahead to see if you will be coming back to specific lessons, otherwise, keep moving forward
Problem Strings
- Series of problems students solve ind and discuss
- Teacher uses specific module for thinking
- Problems at beginning stage relate to problems at end stage
- Grade 3 Unit 2 Module 3 Session 2 (Lesson Example for ratio table)
- Efficient, Flexible, and Accurate (Purpose of Lesson)
- Multiplication menus will be foundation for building division
- Building knowledge and power of how a ration table works
*Grades K-3 have Problem Strings in their modules
*Grades 4-5 tie Number Corner together with Problem Strings
- Can place Problem Strings on an index card for quick access while teaching
- Are not asking for students to do a whole set of new math, but a new strategy on math they might already know
- Always allow extra time for students to actively discuss their thinking process with others
Small Group Time
- Work Places is not enough for small group
- Problems and Investigations regularly provide one on one or space for small group
- Don’t talk the whole time, have students DO the work with you as you go through the lesson
- Use the pre-assessments regularly to look ahead at future lessons to meet the needs of your students
Modifications/Support and Challenge
- Begin at your Unit 1 Planner - it talks about all 4 modules and has lots of dots on the right hand side of the page
- Flip back to the last page of that section to grid “Differentiation”
- By Module, By Session, when you have challenge and ELL supports
- Choose one of those dots on the lower three lines
- Find the module and session for that lesson
- These will be bolded labeled “ELL” and “CHALLENGE”
What is a Math Forum?
- An active learning time when students explain their solutions and strategies worked the previous session
- The role of the class is to listen respectfully, ask questions, and learn from their classmates
- Prior to the forum, the teacher pre-selects who will share. The selection is designed to scaffold thinking around specific strategies and models that enhance efficiency, flexibility, and accuracy.
Example of How to Plan for a Math Forum
Ahead of time do the following:
- Select one question from a session to have a forum on. “Take out a highlighter and circle #3” This will be a visual for students and teachers to focus on just that problem
- Talk to your team to plan this together
- Categorize papers into different strategies by efficiency and commonalities
- This will allow the teacher to know what direction to go and be strategic about who could share a strategy based on observations
Unpacking Number Corner
- Place number corner in a place where students can touch and interact with the board
- Use windows, cabinets, cut the chart in half to make it fit, wheeled pocket charts, or any other place where students can use it
- Look at Daily Planner
- Make a copy of this page ahead of time because it will be different for years to come.
- Put in the days of the month that you are in school
- 5 Components plus an Assessment on the Daily Planner
- Calendar Grid - Patterns and structures that introduce and reinforce a variety of key number and geometry skills.
- Make space for the Calendar Grid Observations. Can use large sticky note chart paper or ringed large tablet. You can share with another subject if space is an issue.
- There is so much embedded, that this is a MUST to have up in your classroom. Laminate these blank charts for each month.
- Every month these will be different. Make and laminate all the different months to have for next year.
- Have a student helper to update your calendar grids.
- Collector - Add something every time. (Estimation and counting, value, measurement, and data)
- Computational Fluency -Often a game that begins teacher-student, then goes to student-student
- Number Line - promotes counting and skip-counting skills, number sense, and comparing and ordering whole numbers and fractions
- Assessment for number corner:
- Have two students help with Number Corner each week
- Assessment data for more of an overall class picture about where your students are. Not specific, more information than regular Units.
- Looking at key concepts from their previous grade level
- This year will be a struggle because they haven’t seen this model yet
- Written Assessment
- The Days on the Daily Planner are Instructional Days, not calendar days. ie- do not plan weekends!
Design is Overview, student and teacher books, and is broken down by the month
- Materials Preparation Chart for the Month - This will be very beneficial as team to front load on copies/charts during planning. Work together as a team to get all copies, etc. complete.
-Move Number Corner to the end of the math lesson if the teachers are not finishing on time or if a timer is not working. If students stay too long on Number Corner you will lose their interest and it will become difficult for them to stay engaged and look forward to Number Corner
- Update = You can’t talk about it. You do not get to talk about it with your students. Flip and Write it Down. Record Data
- Early Release Days - Teach math lesson vs. Number Corner. Move Number Corner to an update day.
What is Computational Fluency?
Efficiency
Efficiency implies that the student does not get bogged down in many steps or lose track of the logic in the strategy. An efficient strategy is one that the student can carry out easily, keeping track of sub-problems and making use of intermediate results to solve the problem.
Accuracy
Accuracy depends on several aspects of the problem-solving process, among them, careful recording, the knowledge of basic number combinations and other important number relationships, & concern for double-checking results.
Flexibility
Flexibility requires the knowledge of more than one approach to solving a particular kind of problem. Students need to be flexible and choose an appropriate strategy for solving the problem at hand. They can use one method to solve a problem and another method to double-check the results.
Become Familiar with the Multiplication Strategies and Properties of Multiplication!
*Use cards in white box which has these properties and definition on the back.
Assessment Binder Breakdown
Section 1: Standards and Assessments
Section 2: Assessing Math Content
Section 3: Assessing Math Practices
Section 4: A Learning Opportunity
Section 5: Using the Results
Section 6: Reporting to Families
Assessments in Bridges
What is Assessment?
Assessment should be more than merely a test at the end of instruction sto see how students perform under special conditions; rather it should be an integral part of instruction that informs and guides teachers as they make instructional decisions. -NCTM
Take Number Corner Assessment Packet and place it in the back of your Assessment Binder.
Unit Assessments
For Each Unit You’ll Find…
- A brief description of all the assessments in the unit and the skills addressed
- Sheets for collecting formal observations about students’ math skills and practice
- Answer keys and scoring guides for each assessment
- Suggestions for support and intervention
Assessments in Number Corner
- Beginning of the year baseline and four quarterly checkups
- List of skills addressed by each of the five assessments
- Answer keys and scoring guides for each assessment are provided
- Suggestions for support and intervention
- A lot of content in one assessment
Comprehensive Growth Assessments
- Test Bank - Don’t give to students all at one time!
- Pull these questions for common assessments
Assessing Math Content
- Assessment Map
- Print in color
- Colors will tell the teacher when the students need to master a skill
- Students are assessed many times throughout the year on many skills/concepts
- Focus on rigor - 4 levels of assessment tasks
- Level 1: Recall & Reproduction (Skill is on recall level; easily performed)
- Level 2: Skills & Concepts (Requires making decisions regarding how to approach a problem)
- Level 3: Strategic Thinking (Deep Understanding; students required to solve problems and draw conclusions)
- Level 4: Extended Thinking (usually requires work over an extended period of time)
Support and Intervention
Provide targeted instruction and support, addressing Tier 2 within the Response to Intervention time frame. Each volume contains activities, games, and practice pages that can be used for reteaching, practice, and progress monitoring.
Only found online, DOWNLOAD and PRINT to put in a Binder!
Volume 1 is complete
Volume 2 is in the process of being completed (Sept)
Volume 3 has been written but is not in production (mid October)
Volume 4
Volume 5
Work Place Games
- Always starts with Unit followed by a Letter (A)
- Materials get shared between work places
- One side are the directions
- On other side, is the teacher piece with the differentiation (Use this for Work Places)
- Use SMART PALS or clear page protectors
- Work Place Log copies are Optional, Play every game once before moving on to another game
- Never Introduce something, the only activities used in Work Places are skills that have already been introduced in class and practiced. No new information for Work Places.
- Work Places need to be set up and organized to meet the needs of YOUR class or students
- Using the online resources for Work Places, you can make copies straight from there in pdf form
- Use your parents during Work Place Time
Home Connections
- Primary way of communicating with parents
- Read the Home Connection thoroughly before sending home any homework pages
- The uncertainty of parents comes from them not knowing how to do the math
- Students must be able to do this at home on their own or it will not be successful
- Be very selective on homework
- Daily Practice Pages work well for homework
- Can’t send homework early. Send the week after once they have had the opportunity for practice
- Have a Work Place Game while they are waiting for Parent Conferences. This provides exposure for parents and students
- Home Connections that don’t get sent home- Plan for a sub! Have them ready in a sub folder
- Use challenge in the program for PACE when looking for more homework options
- Math site - TEKS Changes and additions by grade level. Share this with parents to show them the changes that the state made
Parent Letters
- Implementation
- Introduce visual models you are working with in the classroom
Sub Plans-Tip
- Emergency Sub Notes (2 things)
- Home Connections that you did not send home
- Work Places-Train students on work places and they run themselves
- Tell your students “If you do well at these, I will put workplaces in the sub plans so you can have more time with those.”