The four components of my Math Rotations are Teacher Time, Seat Work, Tech Time, and Game. Today’s post will share some ideas with you for activities and things I have my students do during the Seat Work portion of rotations. The biggest key thing for me to stress is that seat work needs to be something that students can work on independently so that you are kept free to work with the small groups. Below are a few ideas for activities I like to include as my options for seat work. I do not use each of these things every day, but pick activities based on the skill we’re currently covering and try to give some variety.
Task Cards:
I love using task cards at the seat work station. I try to make sure I have differentiated sets of task cards so that I am able to meet the different needs of my students when they are at this rotation. Task cards are great because they can cover the current skill or be review for a past skill. Students are held accountable because they fill out the recording sheet as they answer the questions. After math rotations I look over the recording sheets and I’m able to see how they are doing with the skill.
Spiral Review Pages:
Constant review of past skills is important to do and spiral review pages help with that. I created the page you see below to fit the skills that we taught and needed to spiral and practice at my school. Students would complete these problems during the seat work time and turn it in. Then, I would check them and give feedback on their page.
Story Problems:
As I mentioned in my past few blog posts I love story problems. They are a wonderful way to practice math skills and provide context for students. I will often put story problem task cards at the Seat Work rotation. Students work on the story problems and turn them in each day for feedback. These often take a few days to finish so I make sure to give feedback each day so students can go back to correct problems as needed. Story problems can be themed and can also be differentiated for your students.
Practice Pages:
Seat Work can also be a time to use practice pages from your math curriculum or other practice pages that focus on the current skill or reviewing past skills.
Seat Work Tips:
- Seat work needs to be able to be completed independently.
- Put seat work after teacher time in math rotations. Students will practice the skill with you in teacher time and then go off to seat work to practice it independently.
- Start your highest group in seat work first. They will either know the skill from prior knowledge or will pick it up quickly with the mini-lesson. You do not want to start your struggling kiddos off at seat work.
If you missed my past posts from my Math Rotations Blog Series, click below…
FREE Math Rotations Planner
Math Rotations can seem a little overwhelming at first especially when you are trying to differentiated to meet the needs of all of your students. To help make this easier, I’ve created this digital or printable planning sheet that you can use to plan out your whole rotation for the day – standards, mini-lesson, rotation activities, and differentiated small group activities. This is a FREEBIE that you can sign up for HERE. Happy math planning!
No Comments