Guided Math in Action: The Plan

Hi! Welcome to my little piece of the internet. I am Heather, a thirty-something wife, mother of 2 and teacher blogger. I have been teaching for 13 years and loving every almost every minute of it! I taught 3rd grade for 10 years, first grade for 3 years and now I am headed back up to teach 3rd grade math/science! Teaching first grade really strengthened my teaching craft. It enabled me to hone my small group skills in a way I don't think would have happened if I'd stayed in a third grade classroom. I am ready to take those skills back up to third with me though!! 

I have be using guided math for 3 years now and I can't imagine going back to whole group! I still have a lot to learn though and I am eager to work my way through this book. I hope you'll join in on the conversation either through your blog, our Facebook page, or on Twitter. I can't wait to see what we can learn together!!

I am so excited to be co-hosting this guided math book study with Cindy from Mrs. Price's KinderGators and Maggie from Maggie's Kinder Corner. We will be reading and discussing Dr. Nicki Newton's book, Guided Math in Action. If you have never had the opportunity to hear Dr. Nicki speak, you are missing out! She is amazing. She was recently a presenter for a small group of teachers in my district but I was not asked to attend :( I considered crashing the party!! Those who were able to attend had so many wonderful things to share! Then, I was lucky enough to watch a webinar she posted on her blog... I took 4 pages of notes and had so many ah-ha moments!!

Okay. Are you still with me?? Below you can find the details for the book study

3 ways to join the party! 

1. Create a blog post and link up each Wednesday
2. Hop on over to the FB page and post/ read along there
3. Head over to twitter and join the discussion using the #guidedmathbookstudy 

Why am I passionate about teaching kids to LOVE math?

Imagine you were on an airplane and the person next to you asked what you did for a living. You say, "I teach reading." What if they then said to you, "I hate reading, I am no good at it."? You would probably be in shock that they just admitted to you that they were not a good reader. Admitting you are a struggling reader is a kind of social faux-pas.  However, this happens EVERY DAY when you tell someone you teach math. Inevitably, people respond, "I'm no good at math." I wonder, why is that okay? Why do we not think anything of it?

I use guided math because I want the kids that leave my class to love math. I hope I can teach them to believe in themselves and their math ability. I hope I teach them to be problem solvers!

Watch this short clip below. This is why we need to be flexible thinkers - problem solvers! Obviously this is meant as a joke, but it may not be that far from the truth!


Thanks for stopping in today! I hope to see you here again next Wednesday. Have a great week!!