Vertical White Boards

One of the biggest teaching mistakes in my career was making my kids sit down during math time.

I always wondered, How do I keep little Kevin from throwing manipulatives? How do I help engage Jess and prevent her from pretending to be a cat during math?  Well, the answer, my friends, was just to have my kids stand up and work in partners during math at whiteboards.  

You see, I stumbled up on this little nugget of wisdom last year, when a friend (Thanks Ms. Bhatia!) recommended that I read Building Thinking Classrooms by Peter Liljedahl.  I am a single mom with little boys in select baseball and basketball, so I have precious little time.  

Luckily, this book was available on Audible and I just listened to it when I was driving into work. I committed to trying what I learned on my ride and over time, my math teaching got better and better because my students were thinking more and more.  

The beauty with vertical whiteboards are that the students can lean on each other when they need help.  They can "phone a friend" and get ideas from white boards near them.  Ayaan can ask his buddy Olive to explain his strategy and I can see where everyone is on a problem, by just glancing around the room.    

I use prompts to debrief like: 

"How is your strategy similar and different from Jenn's?"

"How did Francis solve this problem?"

"What did Frankie get right here, even though there is a piece that might not be right?" 

Even though this is my 19th year teaching (yikes, how has the time gone by so fast?!?!), I am going to be trying new ideas, messing up, learning things, and journeying in the classroom.  If you would like to following along and listen to what I have learned and created, join me as I play with math!

Click here for some problem solving math that can be done on Whiteboards.