How I organize small groups for math workshop

So, you’ve gone to the workshops, read all the books and blogs, researched your resources and you’ve decided to get going with math workshop. Stations, rotations, guided math, whatever you wanna call it! Small groups will absolutely change your classroom for the better. There is so much value to sitting down with a small group of kiddos and getting to focus on a few students at a time. It creates a safe environment for kids to make mistakes and know that you are right there to help and encourage them when they need it!

Deciding to do small groups in my math class was an easy choice for me! Deciding how to get organized and display station related things for my students, not such an easy choice! Here’s how I have set up my small group station display in my math classroom!

MATH STATION BOARD SET UP

organize small groups for math workshop display

Pictured above is one way I have displayed my guided math stations before! I had 4 groups in each class with 4-5 students in each group. I printed group numbers on colored cardstock and laminated it. Then I put 5 velcro strips on each piece of paper. I printed and cut numbers for each of my students This works great if your students are used to being assigned a number and also helps with groupings of students not being as obvious; most kids know their own number, but not everyone else’s.

The circle letters at the bottom represented each of our 4 stations…no cute acronym for us! C- Chromebooks, P-practice, G- Game, and T-Teacher (more on our stations later!)

Below is a picture of what it actually looked like in my classroom…it’s kind of blurry because this was before taking pictures of your classroom was a popular thing to do!

In the picture above, I had 2 different class sections, so there are three different sets of 4 groups.

SMALL GROUP JOB ROLES TO INCREASE ACCOUNTABILITY

On the right hand side, I listed what we would be doing at each station. Next to that I had different student jobs within each group to help keep students accountable and activity participating when working with a group. We had a team leader, a co-leader, the time keeper/ noise monitor, and a material manager.

The leader and co-leader were in charge of keeping everyone on track, clarifying instructions, and helping answer questions. The time-keeper would help with pacing and making sure everyone was getting their work done in a timely manner. They also made sure to let their group know when it was time to clean up. The materials manager was in charge of grabbing any extra materials that the group needed for a particular station, as well as putting the materials up. We had 4 colors bands the matched the colors on the student jobs poster that students would wear so I would know who had what job! I found the bands in the Target dollar spot!