Flex Days

 How to Meet Individual Needs in Math

Our Leadership discussed our reading and math goals this week, and I thought I'd share some ideas to support our "small group" instruction in math, through our Flex Day strategy.  Please review our goal and action step, as well as some suggestions for differentiation on your Flex Days.

Willow River Goal and Action Plan for Math, 2022-2023

• Goal: 66% 3-5 students will be proficient and advanced on the Forward Math.
• Action Step: Flex Days are intentional and responsive to student data and happen weekly (i.e. ACIs, unit tests, etc.).

One of the action plan items for the math goal is an intentional focus on Flex Days (this can be on Fridays, or can be any day - but it must be once a week).  I took a look at the Everyday Math website, and found some suggestions from other teachers using Everyday Math.  These may not be unique or new, but they may remind you of strategies and resources you can utilize.

Differentiation Tips: How might I use centers to support learning for a diverse group of students?

• Activities in Part 3 of the lesson are ideal for setting up centers/small groups.  They can be combined with exploration activities, games, and other projects.
• Have students do the Readiness Activities in centers before they get to the lesson that the activity is in.  The Readiness Activities are designed to prepare students for the content in the lesson.
• Make games in baggies for the centers/small groups.  Differentiate the games by using more digits in a game or more cards.  The Differentiation Handbook has suggestions for adjusting the difficulty or focus of some games for each unit.
• Use unit-specific games at some centers and Top It card games at another, so that some games respond directly to current topics of instruction, while other games are reinforcing basic skills.
• Practice Pages are printed by the district for each unit and can be used on Flex Days.  Tan copies are for Below or Approaching practice, Yellow copies are for Approaching/Meets practice, and Gold copies are for Enrichment.

How can I provide enrichment?

• The Assessment Handbook has unit-specific suggestions for modifying the written assessments and for implementing and adjusting the difficulty of the Open Response problems.
• Use copies from the masters section in the back of the Differentiation Handbook to find activities that extend learning. The Teacher's Lesson Guide also has many ideas.
• Have students make more difficult Math Boxes for another student at their level from a 6-box template.  Blank masters for Math Boxes can be found in the back section of the Differentiation Handbook.  
• Provide a fact family and a unit for students to write a number story using one of the 4 operations.

Full article and information: Advice from Colleagues - University of Chicago site