Math Workshop Series: Warmups & Mini Lessons

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This post is the third part of a series on using math workshop in your classroom. To read how to get started with math workshop, click here. In this post, we will learn how to incorporate warmups and mini lessons into your math workshop.

Types of Warmups

Although some teachers use their warmup time as their spiral review, I believe that is a separate part of math workshop. I prefer to use spiral review time to practice older concepts, and to use warmup time to either activate prior knowledge for the current lesson or get students brainstorming.

Here are two strategies that I choose from as warmups:

  • Pose a problem and have students work in a group to brainstorm how they may solve it. This helps them begin to discover the mini lesson strategy on their own!
  • Activate prior knowledge by reviewing past vocabulary or concepts that apply to the mini lesson strategy.
For this warmup, students were given the task of using fraction cubes to add unlike fractions. They only had experience with like fractions! Discovering this strategy on their own will make it “stick” more.

The goal of the warmup activity is to get students ready to learn the strategy that will be taught during the mini lesson. When you are choosing your warmup activity, make sure that you keep that goal in mind.

Planning Great Mini Lessons

The mini lesson part of math workshop is where students will learn something new. It should only last 15-20 minutes and can include things such as:

  • Modeling how to solve a problem
  • Creating an anchor chart with students
  • Scaffolding with guided notes
Remember to keep mini lessons short and sweet.

The key to planning a great mini lesson is that it should be “short and sweet.” Once you have explicitly taught a strategy, students can practice it in partners or even independently. If they need more practice, they will need to be pulled into a small group. There will be more on that in the next part of this series!

What is your favorite way to teach a math workshop mini lesson? Let me know in the comments below!

For other posts in this series, visit these links:

  1. Getting Started
  2. Spiral Review
  3. Warmups and Mini Lessons
  4. Small Groups and Centers

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