Each day, students complete a warm-up that usually consists of spiraling the previous day's material, in addition to older material. Warm-up problems also sometimes extend lessons that students have encountered before to more unfamiliar contexts.
For a video narrative about how I structure each lesson, and how the warm-up fits in, click here.
For the huddle for this lesson, I like to talk about #9 and #10... it pushes the kids' thinking since they are oriented differently. I also spend a good amount of time on #11, and I ask, "what do you think is a popular WRONG answer choice that kids choose, and why?" It opens up a good discussion.
I usually group students according to the following:
- the front row (6 seats) are reserved for kids who are best served by working with me. These are generally the middle low kids - not necessarily the lowest kids.
- the most struggling students are seated next to a strong tutor, as they require more than small-group attention, they need 1-on-1 tutoring as the lesson goes by.
- most middle students are seated next to a a strong-middle student, to maximize the quality of their discussion.
I think about the entire seating chart in pairs.
Homework is to be completed at home and should take students approximately 15 minutes.