How to Disagree

We have been very busy learning all sorts of important strategies and routines for working independently in the classroom. There are 4 different stations students will be working on during our guided math group time: fun facts, challenges, problem solving, and technology. Over the course of the next week, I'll be posting information about each of the different stations and what you can do at home. But here are some quick summaries of the different stations:

• Fun facts is designed to help the students become more confident and fluent with their facts so computation becomes easier. This is an individualized station where students work on their own personal level.
• Challenges like the broken calculator and challenge 24 get us thinking about numbers in different ways.
• Problem solving is our most challenging station. These multi-step problems require us to use many different math and thinking skills. Our goal is not necessarily to get these problems correct; the goal is to try a variety of strategies.
• Technology is another individualized station where students work on our fourth grade skills at their person level. While we will be using Study Island, our biggest focus will be a website and app called Front Row.

Now you may be wondering, what in the world does this have to do with the post title, How to Disagree? In addition to learning these important math routines, we've also been learning what it takes to be a good teammate. Our second word of the week is respectful, and while it's easy to be respectful when you're having fun and agreeing with others, disagreements are a different story. 

While I could take the time about how to disagree, I thought Kid President said it really well. After we watched his take on disagreeing, we talked about each step and added them to our wall of learning. Hopefully this year we can learn to disagree and still treat people well. Check out what Kid President has to say!