BUILDing the Math Workshop

So sorry to everyone who has e-mailed and asked about BUILD! I have had such a busy and exciting first 6 weeks of school! Here is an entire post dedicated to everything I know about BUILD. Please feel free to leave me a message asking any questions. Thanks for your interest!

Thanks to some fabulous ladies that work in the Math department at my district (Cindy and Melissa!), we have a fan.tast.ic math workshop plan to implement in our classrooms!

In case you haven't already gathered, it is called BUILD.

This is like the Daily 5 is for reading. You spend time building stamina and independence for each station.

Buddy Games

This is where I put games that my kiddos have practice practice practiced multiple times. They know the expectations: whisper voice, play the right way, play the whole time. My school uses Investigations as our math curriculum, so this goes perfectly b/c the basis of the curriculum is them playing games to master math skills.

Using Manipulatives

This is where I put manipulatives for exploration. For the first few weeks of school I have had pattern blocks and workmats. You could also put play money, Judy Clocks, unifix cubes.

Independent Reading/Work

The title on this one pretty much explains it. My kiddos read math books during this time- and amazingly they really like it. Seemingly way more than Read to Self during Literacy stations. This is where you could also have them working on something pencil and paper if you need them to.

Learning About Numbers

For this one I have hundreds chart games, matching, number scrolls, student made books about numbers.

 

Doing Math

This is where I put a game when we first learn it. After they have played it on their own a good amount of times and I have made sure that the majority of the class knows how to play- then I move it to Buddy Games.

The way it works is that the students go to 2 BUILD rotations a day. So, in a five day week, they go to each one twice. I use a spreadsheet and the students check in with me before we do each rotation to tell me what they want to do. Sometime I have to override it, but they don't seem to mind too much. I usually see a small group during each rotation. Normally it is the same small groups each day, so that means that most weeks they do each letter only once in a week. That doesn't bother me becasuse they are with me for roughly an hour and 15 minutes a week in a small math group getting individualized attention.

Here is the spreadsheet I use for check-in. I take a different color highlighter each day and highlight their choice during check-in.

{click the link to download}

I have seen others do it where they have the spreadsheet with a day of the week at the top and they right in what the student chooses, but that didn't work for me.

The recommendation when I got training on BUILD was that you spread it out as you would Daily 5 and only introduce one station at a time, but I started my kids on all of them right away and they did a great job.

Math stations is the quietest, most on task part of the day in my classroom thanks to BUILD. I love it!

I hope this helps! :)