//Top 10 Guided Math Blogs//
- Myrandah Staub
- Jun 15, 2017
- 6 min read
Last week, I found 50 different education blogs that discuss guided math. After individually exploring each and every one of these blogs, I narrowed them down to the 10 most influential, information packed, and easy to navigate sites.
I will be using these 10 blogs to guide me in my research this summer and YOU should use them to deepen your understanding of the benefits of guided math or just to gain a few new ideas. There are tons of descriptive, step-by-step recommendations regarding the introduction of guided math, creating a routine, differentiation, and much more. Additionally, a few of these sites offer webinars, freebies, workshops, text recommendations, teacher resources, etc!
Love, love, love this blog! This second grade teacher of 24 years strongly promotes organization and differentiation. (I mean, all educators should definitely make these two factors a priority). Under the tab organization, you'll find VARIOUS examples and images of how she has organized her classroom to depict a child-centered, math focused atmosphere that meets the needs of EACH of her students. Her recommendations regarding organization go as far as describing independent practice stations, a guided math station rotation organizer, and guided math teaching tools.
Be sure to check out the resources tab where you'll find teacher text resources, math tools, workstations and games, math mentor texts, online resources, and free math clip art! Also, the what is GM tab give a great description of the structure of guided math and its many benefits!
This blog is packed full with details about guided math! Many of the sites that I have included in this list pertain to the early elementary grades, however this site is for grades pre-k through 8th grade! There are differentiated lesson plans with plenty of details that explain how to meet the needs of individual students. (So helpful). Here is an example of one of the many amazing differentiated lesson plans. This entire site is ALL ABOUT guided math! One of the articles provides an example of how to use real life math problems in guided math groups! (Sometimes it can be hard to brainstorm various, relatable, real life math situation for students, so this is great!) Angela Bauer holds professional development workshops across the U.S. At the top of her webpage you can find dates and locations of upcoming training's. I found her post on Guided Math Best Practices to be especially interesting, so definitely check it out! Under the guided math ideas tab you can choose a specific grade level and math skill that will take you to a page that lists various articles on different activities for that particular grade level. Like I mentioned previously, this site is packed full with information about guided math! Happy exploring!
Anna has been a second grade teacher for over 20 years! If you click on the link "Guided Math that Works" on her home page, she introduces her blog series "Get your Groove on with Guided Math," which focuses on 9 major components of guided math, including organization, flexible grouping, managing rotations, whole group instruction, small group guided instruction, independent practice, math stations, math journals, and fact fluency. Whole group instruction is only one small fraction of the guided math process, if you scroll down the page on her blog to "Whole Group Instruction," I like how she explains the way that she teaches during whole group instruction in her classroom. She mentions how she ONLY uses whole group instruction when introducing a new unit and explains what she does during her whole group instruction!
At the top of her page, you'll find the tab that says "blog," if you click that tab, it will take you to a bunch of guided math articles she has written! Additionally, at the top of the page, if you click the tab "shop," it will take you to her Teachers Pay Teachers page, where you can find guided math activities, assessments, and much more!
This blog post focuses on how to set up guided math in a classroom, what to do with the students who are not working in small group with the teacher, and what to teach students in guided math groups. This blogger is a kindergarten teacher, turned first grade teacher, turned kindergarten teacher again! Many of these recommendations can be used throughout the primary grades, however she has been using these strategies with her kindergartners.
This is the first blog that I have seen interactive notebooks used during guided math! (If you haven't heard of interactive notebooks, please please please give them a look! Check out this post on Minds in Bloom's website right away!)
Additionally, this educator has a Teachers Pay Teachers account that offers a Kindergarten Guided Math Lessons for the Entire Year bundle!!
This blogger has even provided a super helpful scope and sequence for kindergartners for the entire school year!! Definitely check out this site!
5. We Heart 1st
I really enjoyed this post on "Guided Math Made Easy!" These two ladies are first grade teachers who use nifty methods such as color coordinating their math groups, encouraging "quick and quiet" movements, and incorporating their smart-board as a visual aide, to make transitioning between stations, run smoothly! When they introduce a new skill, they post the skill on their FOCUS WALL. What a great idea, right!? To remind the kiddos what they are expected to understand and focus on! There are so many great photos, of what look to be her actual students, performing math tasks! (Great visuals are just as engaging and helpful for us adults as they are for our students....I think so at least....so I love that they included so many images!) These ladies basically walk through their entire guided math routine, sharing oodles of ideas!!
As you've probably come to realize after exploring a few of these blogs, guided math can be implemented in a variety of ways! This fourth grade teacher focuses on four main components in her classroom, mini-lessons, small group, math centers, and math calendar. If you scroll to the bottom of her "Components of Guided Math" post, you'll find 8 different types of math strategies that she recommends trying in your classroom! There is various information regarding guided math on her blog, so take your time peeking through her posts!
You MUST check out this bloggers post about how she incorporated math huddles and interactive anchor charts into her math workshop!! She even includes images of the anchor charts that she has created with her class! I have never heard of math huddles prior to this post...have you? She explains them in a way that will make you want to immediately add them to your math routine! On the right side of her blog, you'll see a list of all of the topics on her blog. To locate all of her guided math and math workshop posts, click on the labels listed on the side of the page.
This kindergarten educator takes you step-by-step through the process of incorporating guided math into your daily routine. This blog is organized, informative, and extremely easy to follow. I love all of the hyperlinks that she has included to keep you informed while reading through her suggestions! I especially liked her idea of having a practice zone for her students to choose their own differentiated math games! There are some really creative and detailed ideas included on this site....so hop to it and get reading!
This post really focuses in on what should be included in a math workshop. Though it doesn't talk directly about guided math, these two areas go hand in hand (guided math and math workshops). Like many of the other wonderful blogs that I have recommended, this blog is bursting with strategies that can be used throughout a math routine! At the top of the page if you hover over the tab that says math and click on math workshop management, it will take you to this page, that includes various activities that can be adapted to use with any grade level.
Again, another fantastic example of how you can implement guided math in a variety of ways! Explore this blog and take a peak at the different math strategies and stations this educator has incorporated into her daily math routine!
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