Organizing Your Classroom
for an Independent Math Workshop
Sarah
Picard
In the week leading up to my first week of teaching second grade
in New York City, I unpacked my new classroom. I arranged and
rearranged furniture in the hopes that I would get things set
up “just right” for the first day of school. As it
turned out, I wouldn’t get it “just right” for
those first days, but I would learn a tremendous amount that first
year about arranging my classroom to maximize student achievement
in math and literacy.
Teaching in a school on the lower east side of Manhattan, in
then District 2, I was given the Investigations Curriculum (TERC)
teachers guides, student workbooks and boxes of manipulatives.
The boxes of math materials were larger than I imagined. As I
read through the curriculum, I realized how much the students
were going to need access to the math manipulatives. With support
from my colleagues, I made a comfortable space for myself and
my students to learn together.
Here are a few tips for organizing your math center, especially
one with manipulatives.
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Create a space to gather. For me, the best place to gather
was a rug or carpet. If you have a larger class, you may have
some children pull up chairs or benches to the edge of the
rug as well.
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You may want to assign each child a rug or gathering spot
around the edge of the carpet. If you have a large number
of students this is especially important. You will want to
train the kids to move in and out of the gathering space quickly
and assigning spots may help you and the kids manage your
time.
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You may also want to assign each child a number. If you have
23 students, then give each child a number, 1 through 23.
This will help when you dismiss children from the rug. For
example, you may say, “all odd numbers may go off to
start their work,” or “numbers 1 through 11 may
go to their desks.”
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Make sure you have plenty of chalkboard or dry erase board
space at the gathering place. My colleagues recommended about
10 feet. You will use this space to hang charts, develop ideas
and share theories.
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Hang a 100 chart from the chalk ledge so it is at eyelevel
when the children gather at the rug.
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Run a number line horizontally above the chalk ledge so it
is at eyelevel with the kids when they gather at the rug.
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Use one or two bookshelves to store your manipulatives. Make
sure to consider the shelves’ height: you’ll want
to be able to see over them and you’ll want your students
to be able to reach the manipulatives with ease. You don’t
want to be interrupted in a conference or small group lesson
to help a child get materials.
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Use small baskets (about shoebox size) to store and organize
your manipulatives on the shelves. For example, the top shelf
may have five baskets of unifix cubes, the second shelf may
have five baskets of pattern blocks, and the third shelf may
have two baskets of blocks and three baskets of coins.
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Label each manipulative basket and the shelf where it belongs.
This will ensure that the children put the manipulatives in
their appropriate basket and that each basket gets put back
on the shelf where you expect it to be.
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Use a large bin to store the children’s math workbooks
or notebooks. Each child’s name and number should be
on the right hand corner so they can find their workbook or
notebook and return it easily when they are done.
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