Math Stretches and Calendar (Freebies)

I have been slightly obsessed with planning for my new math program every since finishing Guided Math and the book study. I plan to start slow, so as to not overwhelm myself, and work towards having a fully integrated guided math program. My first implementation is going to be Calendar and Math Stretches. 

By starting with Calendar and Math Stretches I think that I can get a handle on this new way of teaching math and not overwhelm myself right from the beginning. The Daily 5 will be an integral part of my literacy program and this will only be my second year using it, so I am planning to make changes there as well. As much as I want to jump right in and do EVERYTHING that I read about in Guided Math, I also recognize that I need time as a learner to adjust and stretch my own thinking. Diving right in and doing things just to do them isn't going to help my students and will probably just stress me out. As teachers, I think we need to give ourselves time to learn and grow as much as we give that time to our students. 

So, back to the freebies! Here is my initial set-up for calendar math. I went through the Ontario curriculum for Grade 3 and tried to identify what I felt were the key ideas/concepts that my students would struggle with throughout the year. Grade 3 is also one of the years that our students write EQAO (which is the standardized testing in Ontario) so I wanted to include concepts that would help them across their math studies. It is important for me to recognize that this calendar set-up will change, and should change. This is just my start-up plan to get me going and using this routine in my class. 

Calendar Outline

Click on the image or title to get your own copy!

I also plan to start each day with Math Stretches as they were outlined in Guided Math. I moved the math stretches around to the days I felt would work better for my class/teaching style and also revamped one math stretch completely. On Tuesday I will be doing "Make It Different" instead of "Number of the Day" that is outlined in Guided Math. I decided that I wanted to do a number of the day everyday as part of our calendar math routine, and that it was important for my students to have a weekly practice with composing and decomposing numbers. 

Math Stretches
Click on the image or title to get your own copy!

My next step is to print off a Math Stretch Planning template and five Calendar Math Outlines for each week of the school year and then bind them together. This way I will have a consistent record of what we have covered in both our Math Stretches and during Calendar Time as I plan through the year. However, even as I write this I realize that I plan to change my Calendar ... so maybe just a binder instead of a spiral bound book?

My one thought/question is this...I want to keep my Math Stretch and Calendar time brief and I will be teaching Grade 3 this year so my thoughts are that I will not have my students copy down anything that we do during this time for the good chunk of the beginning of the year. Instead it will be a whole class oral exercise in order to develop our math literacy! Thoughts about this??

I also plan to have my Friday Math Stretch "How Did My Family Use Math This Week?" as part of my student's weekly homework...but that is another post for another day!