Leveled Problem Solving

 The sweet third grade class poured into my portable after lunch today. They were still excited from recess and chatting about their holidays and plans and games.  After they settled down, and each took a seat, we started our day.  

The mood meter was on the board, and I heard about trips to California, games with brothers in the snow, and how it was hard to roll out of bed this morning. I like starting class this way, as in a soft start, because I get to know my students a little better and understand what their world looks like outside of my door. 

Time was limited and the learning levels in the class varied.  Students who were one or two years below grade level sat in the same room as problem solvers who were testing well above average.  How do I meet everyone's needs, engage learners and push my students all at the same time??

Today, my solution was leveled questioning and opening up models with builds.  The questions were a little difficult- but with partners, open whiteboards, and two teachers as scaffolds, structures were in place to support the on level kiddos. 

I watched as my on level students made connections between repeated addition problems and multiplication.  Students drew labeled diagrams and discussed representing math in meaningful ways.  The room was a buzz and the students were focused. 

One student, a reluctant mathematician, asked me if he could do the work in another way.  This student likes to think in objects and build ideas rather than show them on paper.  I opened up my science cabinet and he got to work.  I watched as this student poured water into measuring cups, and accurately measured out 250mL of water and carefully poured it into 5 cups.  He then verbally calculated the total amount of water in all the cups by explaining that 2 groups of 250mL made 500mL, and therefore, there must be 1L of water plus another 250mL.  He had a smile on his face, was focused and excited and eager to share his learning.  He even labeled some of his work with whiteboard markers on the table when he was done.  He leveled up and began thinking about 3 additional water bottles and continued his math exploration for the duration of the time. 

I pulled in the level 3 thinking into the debrief.  My gifted student explained to the class how a student could use the distributive property when calculating the cost of the water and cups.  He explained that he broke up $44.50 into 44 and 0.50 and multiplied each by 8 to find the cost of the cups.  My student walked us through how that would look as I added visuals to the board.  It was essentially a math talk at the conclusion on the lesson so my student could work on verbally explaining his logic and thinking to others.

Some days in teaching you walk away thinking, "Man, that lesson didn't go as I wanted it to..." and other days you win at teaching.  Differentiation and flexible thinking gave me a check in the win category today.  Thank you building thinking classrooms.