Chapter 2 discusses the importance of student seating and arrangements, material organization, student calendars or agendas, numeracy-rich environment, manipulatives, problem of the day, math journals, math vocabulary, graphic organizers, and math related literacy during guided math time.  

Student Seating:  Often Times, I keep my desks in groups or tables because I love doing group work and having my students work together.  I have a rolling 5 drawer cart at each table group for storage of art supplies, pencils, materials, etc.  This helps quickly when we need to find things.  Also, I have a meeting area with a while board and carpet for mini-lessons and whole group instruction.  During small group instruction, I have a small group table that I use to meet with my students.  I would show pictures, but because it is the end of the year all materials and desks have been put away for the summer.

Material Organization and Manipulatives:  I keep all of my materials stored in small tubs that can be purchased at the Dollar Tree or Walmart.  They are really inexpensive and easy to store.  My problem is that I don't have enough storage space for all of my tubs.  I need to be creative in how I store these tubs.  Any ideas?  

Small Group Area:  Students sit at a horseshoe shaped table for my small group math lesson.  During my math group when the students come to me, I have a 5 drawer rolling cart.  This cart contains all of the materials I will need for my guided math groups for the week. I also have one of these carts for my guided reading groups as well.  They work out great, because they are on wheels and can be easily rolled.

Large Group Meeting Area:  Students sit on a carpeted area by the Promethean Board.  We do our whole group lesson with either our Envision Math lesson video, or a BrainPop video, or both.  Does anyone else use Envision that does Math groups?  I am eager to see what you do whole-class lesson and small-group lessons using this series.

Rotation:  Students typically go to 4 stations a day.  Sometimes, we might not get through all of the stations and have to pick up the next day.  My group signs are in a pocket chart and say group 1, group 2, group 3, and group 4.  I tried to actually give the groups a name such as with teacher, at the computer, on Ipad, hands on, etc.  But I found that when I wanted to change things, the kids got so confused on what to do. So to keep it generic and simple I do group 1, group 2, group 3, and group 4.  I put up on a dry erase moving white board (with wheels) what the students need to do at each group.  They rotate through stations.  They spend about 15 to 20 minutes at a station.  

Things that I need to work on after reading this chapter are:  having a math board, calendar time, and math journals.  I have already starting purchasing interactive math journals, and hope to make some as well.  I am going to make one of my math groups next year a journal group.  I am still trying to figure out how to do calendar and  math board.  Any ideas?

Do you have anything to add about how you do math groups in your classroom?

Now on to Chapter 3?