Guided Math Study Chapter 3 (a day late) :-)

Here are my thoughts on chapter 3:

1) I wish my school was open (even though grad school has me way to busy to visit), so that I could use pictures of my own classroom instead of Google images.

2) Now for the book chapter: I'm so loving this book study because it is giving me lots of ideas.  Our math curriculum is changing this year, and until I attend training on it in July, I'm COMPLETELY in the dark about Investigations.  Does anybody use this for math?  Do you have any information to share?

3) I really want to implement math journals, and I think Math Stretches might be a good way to do so.  I am especially interested in the Number of the Day and What's Next math stretches.  I think that these are feasible and would be engaging for 2nd graders to do.

I love these composition books.  We use them for writing, but I think they'd work great for math and science too!

4) I really like how Sammons points out the relationship between discussion and writing in math, and how they are both important.  I know it will help my students to have a few minutes to write down their thoughts prior to a discussion so that they are prepared.  I think it would even be good to allow them time to talk to a partner before the whole class discusses so that they can experience and share in multiple ideas.

5) I think that the "______ Makes Me Think of..." stretch will be VERY easy to integrate with Thinking Maps (don't you agree? :-) )  What a great way to encourage making math connections/establishing relationships between math concepts.

6) I feel very good about my use of calendar time.  It teaches so many important math skills.  This is the calendar I have in my room, even though, it is not THE exact one.  This is an area I would like to grow in.  What do you include in your calendar time?

7) Final thoughts: I LOVE the idea of a problem of the day, and I hope that the Investigations curriculum lends itself to this.  Also, I like the proposed schedule of math stretches that Sammons offers (e.g. doing the same kind of stretch each weekday- What's Next on Mondays, etc.).  

I'm looking forward to practical implementation advice that will come in Guided Math's next chapters as Sammons discusses math in different groupings (Whole Class, Small Groups, etc.)