You have small groups. Now what?

Hi, friends!  Happy Tuesday!  I'm sure that most of you are teaching right now, or maybe on your way to school still, but I'm sitting in the living room with our Christmas tree on and the twinnies are napping sweetly nearby.  I'm going to hit this hard and fast so we can be done before the boys wake up and I need another cup of coffee.  =)

If you've been following along at all, you know that I've been blogging lately about making small groups.  (I'd like to call it a series, but these posts have been so random and intermittent that I think series is too generous.)  In my last post here, I talked about how I made small groups.  So now I want to talk about what the heck you do with these small groups once you have them.  I think the obvious answer is that we all make small groups for SGI (small group instruction), so that you can give kids more targeted instruction, whether it's for reading or math.  What's less obvious is the best way to plan for SGI and actually run those small groups.

There are about a thousand ways to organize for SGI; most of them involve some type of work station, whether you're using Daily 5, Cafe, project based learning, or something else.  (To be honest, my previous literacy coach always pushed upper grades to do SGI during independent reading because she felt that was more authentic than work stations, but I think that's a little impractical in early grades, mostly because their stamina for independent reading doesn't match the amount of time you really want to spend with small groups.)  So, assuming you're balancing SGI with work stations the first thing you should decide is how often will you do SGI?  (For the record, I'm using SGI to refer to both guided reading and math,although I realize the process might not be the same for both.  We'll separate them out in a later post.  Fear not!)  Here are the three SGI schedules that I encounter most often.  I've used two of them myself.

SGI Plan 1 (this is what I used teaching first grade):  SGI occurs daily in reading, and almost daily in math.  Teacher sees all groups at least once a week, strategically choosing groups who might need extra sessions to see teacher multiple times.  Student rotation groups go to each work station once/week.  Pros to this style are that teachers see every single student at least once weekly, so you have a good feel for student progress, challenges, etc.  Cons:  If students are out the day you see them  you miss them for that week.

SGI Plan 2 (I used this teaching kindergarten):  SGI occurs daily, and 3 times/week in math.  Teachers see all groups daily (in reading), and each student within a week (math).  Pros:  Students gets lots of instruction targeted specifically for them and generally make pretty significant growth as a result.  Cons:  high work station churn; very difficult to run without 2 teachers in the classroom.    

SGI Plan 3 (I have never used this myself):  SGI only occurs several times per week (2-3), and teacher prioritizes students with highest needs.  Pro:  frees up classroom time for other aspects of instructional day.  Con:  students with high needs don't get as much targeted instruction.

I'd love to hear about which SGI lay out you use in your classroom.  I'm hoping to be back before the end of the week to talk about how I actually plan for SGI.  Have a great Tuesday, and don't forget to check out the TpT Cyber Monday & Tuesday sale!  Everything is 28% off until midnight tonight!  Start your shopping here!

Stay dry!
xoxo

The times. They are a-changing.

Hello, friends!

Every time I start to type a post on my sad little blog I make all types of resolutions about how I'm going to be better.  It's just so tricky for me to find that balance during the school year.  It's at the very top of my summer to do list, and I'm hoping to find lots of inspiration in the relaxation (or crazy busy-ness) of the summer.

I'm here today to share some incredibly exciting news.  (Well, at least it's incredibly exciting to me.)  After 4 years with my current school, I decided to take a new position at a different school next year.  Teaching kindergarten!  Which is funny, because if you know me I always swore up and down that I would never go younger than first.  But, the school that I'm moving to has all the things I'm looking for, so I'm testing the waters of kindergarten, and I figure if I decide it's not for me I can probably adjust grade levels again in a year or two.  Right??  While I have no idea where/what I'm going to do with all the stuff I've accumulated over 4 years (no garage, live in an apartment), I am really excited for a new start in the fall.  It will be hard to leave the friends I've made over the past 4 years, but I'm pretty confident that I made the right decision.

Over the summer I'll probably start to transition to some more kindergarten based content, but I'm hoping to still share some first grade shenanigans.  I'm also planning to read Smarter Charts over the summer (I've heard a TON of great things about that book!)   In case you're not familiar, basically the author talks about how to make charts useful to kids by illustrating processes and making charts interactive.  

And I'm also planning to finish Putting the Practices Into Action, a great book about the SMPs (standards for mathematical practice) in the Common Core.  I actually got this book (an embarrassingly long time ago) at a PD and started it, but then got busy with school and didn't finish it.  I'm excited to go back and re-read/finish it because it has tons of actionable ideas for a variety of grade levels and it's a very easy read.

And in non-teacher related news, I'm planning to read The Fault in Our Stars.  Just because.  Should anything else be on my summer reading list?

Enjoy the rest of the week!
xoxo

I did it!

Hello, friends!

We still have one more day of school before spring break, but I wanted to share a quick update.  As I mentioned in this moment of brutal honesty I've really been dropping the ball on math instruction for a few months and I vowed to do better.  (A coworker of mine is really fond of saying when you know better you do better.  And I definitely do so I am.)  So for the past month, basically, I've been assessing my kids 3 times a week and really trying to use that data to meaningfully group and reteach my kids.  One part that I've REALLY liked about this personal push is that I've been really pushing my highest math group much more often, and I'm really seeing growth out of them.  For example, right now we're in a unit on data, time, and measurement and I've been able to not only push my high group to create their own questions, data, and graph, but I was even able to teach them in a small group how to use a scale other than 1 on their graphs.  It's been so nice to be able to challenge my highest group, as opposed to constantly pushing up the lowest groups.  I'm sharing my skip counting by 5s on a graph activity with you, should you be interested as well--for before or after spring break.  =)  I've honestly never done this before, but if I understand technology correctly, you should be able to click this link and download the activity.

Enjoy your spring, friends!

Just Another Manic Monday?

Hi, friends

This is a super short it's past my bedtime, but I really want to share post.

First, I'm SO jazzed!  We finally were able to squeeze in yoga today for the first time this school year!  Two  years ago I wrote a Donors Choose project to get 25 yoga mats to teach my class yoga to help them self-regulate.  Plus, it's a really great way to expose them to an organized activity that isn't aggressive like football.  (Or deathball, as I sometimes like to call the recess version of football.)

And second, I wanted to share this brand spankin' new product with you.  I'm really having a hard time building my nuggets' number sense this year, so I felt like I needed to take a step back and teach them how to extend the counting sequence using tools.  I taught this lesson today and got really concrete, usable data back.  I'm feeling really happy about it.  Also, if you checked out my store yesterday you'll notice that I knocked 50 cents off the price so now this lesson is only $1.50.  I think that's pretty reasonable.

Have a great night!
xoxo,
Rachel

Five for Friday on a Saturday. Again.

Hi, friends.  I'm late.  Again.  But I'm going to link up with Doodlebug's for 5 for Friturday (that's a mix of Friday and Saturday) since it was so much fun last week.

1.  I launched writers' workshop this week.  We're testing out this new writing curriculum put together by Schoolwide.  I like it because they plan out the entire lesson for you and they use LOTS of mentor texts.  I would say the criticism I have right now is that it seems like sometimes their goal or objective for the lesson is slightly disconnected from the actual content of the lesson.  After our lesson we completed the sentence "I feel like a writer when..." and they had some sweet ideas!  One kid said that they feel like a writer when he reads books and another said he feels like a writer when he concentrates.  

2.  On Tuesday this week we also talked about adjectives as words that describe and brainstormed some adjectives that we could use to describe first grade.  We came up with a nice chart full of describing words and then I gave them part of this lifesaving back to school packet and they wrote about first grade.  This one certainly WASN'T on the chart, but I obviously 100% agree. 

3.  Even though this week was a short week because of Labor Day it felt super long!  I don't think it helped that I had several commitments during the week outside of school.  I'm just feeling so behind, and school just started.  How can that be?!

4.  Today, I spent all day at an area charter school as part of a TeachFest launching the DC Common Core Collaborative (DC CCC).  Even though I was a little sad to miss college football games during the day it was great to be around teachers who are so committed and inspired.  I'm in the first grade math group, and during this first quarter we're each designing a performance task that will fall in the operations & algebraic thinking.  We specifically decided to focus on 1.OA.3 and 1.OA.4.  I'm so interested to see the tasks that everyone is going to design!  

5.  My teacher desk has been a HOT MESS since the first day of school and Friday I promised myself that I would not leave the physical building of my school until I dominated that mess.  I would be lying to you if I said that I hadn't repeatedly looked at this picture of my table throughout the weekend just because it makes me feel more zen.  

You're probably saying to yourself  "Zen?!  I can see scraps of paper on your table!"  You're right.  There are scraps of paper on my table, but those are all piles that have post-its on them and are ready to go Monday morning.  

That wraps up my Five for Friturday.  I hope your weekends are lovely and that your team wins tomorrow!  (Unless you live in Chicago.  Then you have to lose so my Bengals can win.)

xoxo

Rachel

Mid-Day Update

Friends!  Are you totally LOSING your mind getting ready for back to school, or is that just me??

I finally yesterday put every last stinking book into a book bin and I honestly think at this point if I find another unsorted book I might just throw it away.  That was such a never ending project! I'm 100% making that a kid's job during the school year.  Handling it from the end of the school year over the summer was plenty for me. That is one job I will happily pass off to a kid.  Now I'm just feeling nervous because my room is covered with random mess and we're in teacher meetings all week and I'm heading out of town this weekend.  Yipes!

My lunch break is over and our afternoon session is starting, so I just wanted to let you all know that I finished my guided reading planning templates.  You link directly to my store here to check them out.

Keep on keepin' on, friends!  =)

Teacher Tips

Two blog posts in under 12 hours?!  I know, I know.  However, if we're being totally honest this less represents my extreme commitment to Teacher Week and the fact that in preparation for PD next week I refused to allow myself to get back into bed after the hubs left for work.  I even made the bed so I wouldn't get into it!  But no one will be at school to let me in until 8:00am.  Which means that I have about an hour and a half to fill.  So you're getting a bonus blog post!  Once again, I'm linking up with Blog Hoppin's Teacher Week for their last day--teacher tips and tricks.  

Now, if we're being totally honest, I don't really consider myself a really tricky teacher, but I suppose I have learned a few things over the years.  I'm coming at you today with a really cool trick I learned last year from another teacher--data folders.  Previously, I blogged about my school's partnership with the Flamboyan Foundation in DC.  (You can check it out here if you missed it.)  Flamboyan has really been working with us on how to engage parents AND how to meaningfully share data with them. 

Last year, I went to a workshop after school hosted by Flamboyan about sharing data with parents and left with a ton of really great ideas.  The one that I liked the best and put into practice in my classroom almost immediately is data folders.  Here's the basic rundown:  You decide one day each week that these data folders will go home.  (I would not recommend Fridays because you really want them back the next day.)  I always do mine on the one day that we don't have a special because that gives us a little more time in class to get the folders ready.  So basically, you're selecting 2 goals that you're monitoring on a weekly basis and you're sending the data home to families each week, giving them information on how their students are progressing.  This is a little different from just sending home weekly assessment scores because you're really trying to track growth over time with these folders, so you're trying to assess the same skill (or group of skills) every week.  For example, last year I tracked my students' fact fluency scores because we took a fluency test each Friday and I also tracked their Fundations check-ups.  (I would give them a quick check-up, even if it wasn't in the plan for that week.)  Then, I can either grade them during a planning period or over the weekend and sort all the tests by kid so that they're reading to the put in the folder.  

There are 3 other really important pieces to the data folder that really bring this picture home to parents.  The first is the graphs.  You make a graph for math data, and ELA data.  You add in the benchmark line (where you want the kids to be; this is almost always 80% in my class) and then you have kids color in the graph to show their score.  This makes it really easy for parents to see where their students are, in relation to where we want them to be.  The second piece is the signature tracker.  Here, you're going to make a sheet with 3 columns.  One will be the date for each week when you send the folders home, the next will be a box for a parent to sign that they went through the folder, and last (and super important) is a comment box.  Parents MUST make a comment on the data.  They can really write anything in here that shows that they went through the folder.  I usually put a few suggestions at the top, like "So proud!" or "Way to go!" or "We need to practice short vowel sounds".  You just want to see by reading the comment that they went through the folder and looked at the data.  And the last piece (and the reason that I always do this on my no-special day) is that you have each kid fill out a form letter to their parents about their data for the week.  It's nothing fancy, just a little "Dear Mom/Dad/Grandma, I am feeling ____________________ about my tests this week.  Next week I want to ___________ (do better, do as well, study more, etc.) so that I can ________________ (get a treat, be smarter, know more math facts, etc.).  Love, ___________".  This whole process definitely takes some time to get rolling, but after the first few weeks this goes much more smoothly.  

Here's why I love the data folder:  you're sending home consistent information every week, so parents can't act surprised/won't be surprised when report cards come home.  I also love it because you can send extra information, like a note about increasing reading levels, but at the baseline they're getting weekly updates about the progressing their child is making in school in a really clear and easy to read format.  

Now, I've heard that there's a giant sale on everyone's favorite website this weekend, so I'm going to try really hard to have all the forms for this data folder up in time for this sale.  I wouldn't look for them before lunch time tomorrow, but that's the goal.  Have a great Friday!

The Fear

Y'all--I have the fear.  Big time.  You can get THE FEAR here.  Basically the fear stops you from being productive, and I'm being productive, but I'm too scared to go back to my classroom.  I'm feeling like I will never be ready for school, but just to let you know that I'm not totally screwing around all the time you can check out my first week plans.

First Week Plans_Blog Version by mrs_wilser

Teaching at the End

Hello again, friends!  I almost said good morning, but the clock on my trusty laptop says it's 12:12pm, so I can guess that's not the appropriate greeting anymore.  I'm hoping to get accomplish lots of pesky goals today so I don't feel bad about going to the pool this afternoon.  I mean, it's 80 degrees and 40% humidity right now.  That NEVER happens in the DC summer.  And while I am very happy about the beautiful break in the otherwise oppressive summer it definitely makes it hard to do anything indoors. So let's get right down to it.

The biggest change, for me, with this inverted math model was teaching at the end.  When you do your launch at the beginning of the lesson you're just priming their brains for the job they have that day.  You're not really smacking them with any knowledge until the debrief at the end.  And what's even harder is when they collectively don't really get the idea on day #1 and you have to do the whole thing again the next day, or the day after that.

So as I mentioned earlier, at the beginning of your math block you'll have a 5-7 minute launch (potentially longer if you're teaching older kids) where you're basically reading the task, making sure everyone understands what their job is for that day, and potentially brainstorming some strategies.  You are NOT modeling an example, a similar problem, or showing them how to get started.  That's what they're figuring out with their partner.  Then they're spending all this time working and you debrief at the end.  During the time students are working you're circulating the room, observing and conferring.  I generally won't talk to my kids for the first 3 minutes or so of work time because it gives me a chance to see what they're really thinking and it gives them time to get started, and it breaks most of them out of the habit of using me as a crutch to get started.  Ideally, as you're circulating you're going to find a kid or 2 or 3 who are solving this problem in either a) the way you envisioned, b) a really cool way that you weren't thinking about but does work, or c) a rudimentary way that still works.  When you find a kid on target you want to ask them (or tell them) to share at the end.

Everyone runs their sharing differently, but during math mine basically works like this.  I would bring all the kids back to the carpet, and I will have the work of the kids who will share.  I'll generally praise the class for their hard work, because, really, this is hard work for kids who are only 6 or 7 years old.  Then I tell them that I want to show them what Mathematician X did that day.  I'll put that student's work up on the document camera and then I kind of take a step back and let that kid tell everyone else what he did.  I'll ask a few questions, but basically it's the kid's show at the point.  They get probably 1-2 minutes.  Then, I'm either going to bring up another kid who solved the problem correctly, but differently OR I'm going to jump in to wrap up.  My wrap up is really when I'm hammering that teaching home.  It's a mind-blowing light bulb time for them sometimes and it's so exciting to see their little math brains growing.  Basically, my wrap up is going to be a summary where I'm going to recap the work we saw and I'm going to leave them with a teaching point for future math work, sort of like the Lucy Calkins' writers workshop idea; something like "Today and everyday mathematicians, when you see a two digit number you'll know that that number is made up of tens and ones".  And then we're going to move on to something else in our day.

However, we all know that sometimes our first graders aren't exactly hitting the nail right on the head, and if that's the case then I'll just lead the share at the end.  I'll grab a blank sheet and model (quickly) how I would have done this problem, and model how I would think through the problem out loud.  Then, I'll finish with the same teaching point.  Again, the share, just like the launch is under 10 minutes.  5-7 is your best bet, because they were just working for so long.

It's so great when all these pieces come together and you have this full inverted workshop running in your classroom.  I really feel like students have a much deeper understanding of their math learning.

Evaluating Inverted Workshop Math Products

Greetings, and happy Sunday, friends!  I don't know about you, but I'm really starting to feel the back to school pressure.  Which is why I was so happy when the weatherman predicted a gross Sunday, because it's much easier to convince the hubs that I need to spend a (summer) weekend working on school stuff when the weather is yucky.  And it doesn't hurt that we both shirked all adult-like responsibilities and went to the pool all. day. long yesterday.  It was glorious!  And then we acted like we were both 22 again and went out way too late last night with friends.  Whoopsie!  But all in all it's been a very fun weekend; I even made eggs benedict this morning (first time ever)!  You can start calling me Martha Stewart whenever you're ready.  ;)

Today, I want to talk about evaluating student work/products in an inverted math model, especially since it's much less cut and dry than a typical word problem.  Of course there are still answers that are right and wrong, but there's a lot of information you can learn from your students' work, even if their answer is ultimately incorrect.

Initially, I was using a simple check/check plus/check minus system to evaluate my littles' work during this time, but I really felt like it wasn't really meaningful for them or for me.  And if evaluation isn't driving future/forward progress then what's the point?  So I spent some time brainstorming and trying to think about what I really wanted out of my kids' work, and how I could communicate it to them in a kid friendly way.  I've always liked the idea of rubrics, but conversely also frequently had a hard time using them in a meaningful way in my classroom.  And then I was paging through this unit that I bought from Deana Jump and DeeDee Wills and they had a writing rubric inside that was based on smiley faces, which I thought was really brilliant, and it was sort of like the clouds parted and I had this flash of teacher brilliance:  I could use a similar evaluation system for the math work that I was doing with my kids.  But one thing that was really important to me is that my kids bought into the rubric, also.  So I brainstormed the things that I really wanted to make sure were included in the rubric, and then I sat my kids down on the carpet the next day for math and I told them that we needed to think about what the very best first grade mathematician work looks like, and what it looks like when you're not doing your very best work and this is what we came up with.

After we made this chart, we had an epic dance party because we spent so much time on the carpet making it, then I laminated it and it hung up in our classroom the rest of the year.  The next thing I did that I really think helped my kids have a clear understanding of the work at each level is that we evaluated some anonymous work together as a class.  We went over what different mathematicians produced and I asked them what symbol they would have put on it, and then I showed them what symbol I actually gave it.  We did this for about 2 or 3 days so that they really understood how to get smiley face exclamation point (which, by the end of the year, was one long word in our classroom--smileyfaceexclamationpoint).  I really feel like this rubric helped my students be clearer about the way I was evaluating their work, and it gave us all a common language to use around discussing our mathematical work.  It was great to see kids using the chart with their partners to think about what they needed to add to make their work even better.

For those of you wondering how I tracked the data across units, I'm here for you.  =)  I really tracked this data in 2 ways.  I would create a chart in word of the problems we were doing each week, and all my kids names and then I would just put the symbol they earned in their box.  This allowed me to look across the week and see if there was a student who really understood and should maybe be pushed harder, or if there was a student, or group of students who really didn't seem like they were understanding our content that week.  The other way I tracked it was numerically, in a grade book so that I could use these symbols to factor into my students' math grades at the end of the quarter.  I just used a 4/3/2/1 system, with the 4 being equivalent to the smiley face exclamation point, and the 1 being equivalent to the straight face.  I didn't use 3/2/1/0 because I feel like zeros can really wreck an average.  But you are, of course, the boss of you.

Honestly, I had planned to talk about evaluation and leading a share/debrief in the same post, but I feel like this is already a super long post, so we'll save leading the debrief for tomorrow.  And last but not least I am working hard at making my debut on Teachers Pay Teachers, and I'll be sharing the documents that I use in my own classroom to make this model work--planning guides, tasks that I've already written, blank rubrics for you to fill in, and maybe a quick how-to guide, if you think that would be helpful.  I hope to have all of those documents ready to go by this Wednesday.  If there's anything else you'd like to know let me know!  I aim to please.  =)

Enjoy the rest of your Sunday!
Rachel

More Math!

Friends!  Before I tell you more about this rad type of math that I'm working on I have to tell you what I did today.  (pause for dramatic effect)  I went running outside today for the first time today since the end of the school year.  It's been super nice out for 2 days in a row; normally DC is about 95% humidity in the summertime because the Founding Fathers decided to drain a swamp to build the nation's capital.  I felt like it was a sign that I should head outside for a run. When I opened my Nike+ app it totally shamed me.  It said "it's been 8 jillion days since your last run".  So embarrassing.  But then I did a 5K, and I didn't die so I'm going to go ahead and label that a success.

But back to this inverted math.  I'm pretty into it.  What I want to tell you about today is how crafting a task to use with this model is different from a standard or typical word problem.  I think one of the easiest areas to see this difference is in addition and subtraction.  So, when you teach a unit on adding and subtracting you're generally spending part of the time teaching students how to solve word problems.  A normal word problem might sound something like this:  "Mattison has 4 cookies.  James has 3 cookies.  How many cookies are there altogether?"  But when you're using the inverted model, you're going to write a task that is either open-ended, or has multiple answers (sometimes both).  Going to the original example, a task for this model on the same content might read something like this:  "In all, Mattison and James have 7 cookies.  How many cookies could each kid have?"  What you really want is a task that has multiple points of entry, and that kids could really spend a significant amount of time working to solve.  In this example, you could encourage kids to think about how many different ways they could put 2 numbers together to get 7.  It's also likely, in this example, that you would be pushing students to notice how turning numbers around represents a different problem.  I find that the easiest way to get started crafting tasks is by working backwards--starting with something more traditional or typical, and then thinking about how I could make it more open-ended or how I could turn it into a problem with multiple solutions.  One more piece that's important in this model is that students are generally using a combination of words, numbers, and pictures to show their work/thinking.  There's also a heavy emphasis on using labels, but I'll get into that more when I talk about evaluation and sharing.  

Another important part of this math model is that students are usually working with a partner, and that they almost always have a variety of tools available to them.  Obviously that implies that at the beginning of the year you're teaching your students how to work with a partner and use tools, but that's likely to be something you're teaching at the beginning of the year, regardless of the type of math you plan to use in your classroom.  Since you're also usually giving students a materials choice when using this model, you also have to help them figure out what tools are best for different tasks.  But I generally feel like these are things that smart teachers are doing at the beginning of the year, anyway, so I'm not going to waste your time talking about all of that here.

I'll be back tomorrow or Sunday (it's supposed to rain on Sunday) to talk about evaluating tasks and how the structure is different when you're teaching at the end, instead of the beginning of the workshop.  Happy Friday!

Brand Spankin' New!

I remember the very first teacher blog I read.  It was this lovely gem, right here, that I still read faithfully.

I actually found about this whole idea of teacher blogging from my mom.  She had mentioned to someone at her fitness classes that I was about to start teaching first grade, and they gave the website to my mom to pass along to me.  If we're being honest, I was skeptical at first.  I had never taught anyone as young as first grade before.  I was up to my eyeballs in preparation, and you wanted me to find time to read someone's blog?!  Which explains why I did not read said blog until mid-way of my first year of teaching first grade.  What an epic mistake.  It unlocked an unveritable treasure trove of ideas, resources, and headache easers.  I'm pretty sure I spent the next few hours bouncing from Fabulous in First to the brilliant ladies teaching first grade that you can find here, here, and here.  I truly believe that the blogs I first started following (and others that I've added along the way) have made me a better, and more creative, teacher.

Fast forward to now, and I'm getting ready to teach first grade for the third year in a row.  If you had asked me when I graduated from grad school what grade I thought I would be teaching it totally wouldn't have been first, but I have to say that I love those little firsties.  They're so darn adorable!  Which is why I have spent so much of my summer preparing for the school year, and why I am starting this blog.  I think that teachers sharing ideas with other teachers makes everyone better.  And that's the goal here--to share ideas, and to become better teachers all the time.

One thing that I've spent a lot of time learning about throughout the past 2 years, and this summer is this flip-flopped model of math (that goes by a thousand different names--inverted workshop, discovery math, and constructivist math are some of the ones I hear most often) where kids are working on solving really complex tasks and the onus of constructing meaning out of the work is on them.  It really changes the role of the teacher, in my opinion.  This model, which I tend to call either reverse or inverted workshop (because the learning comes at the end, rather than the beginning) really challenges students and teachers, and works in extremely well with the Common Core standards.

The basic idea is that you have a short launch with the kids (about 5 minutes), make sure everyone understands the task, and then you send them off to work.  And they work for a really long time--like 15-25 minutes (with one brief mid-workshop stop in the middle-ish)!  If you had told me I would get my kids working for 25 minutes on a math task before I started this model I would have told you you were living in a fantasy land!  But I won't tell you that anymore because I've done it with my kids, and that really is how long they work. =)  Then, you bring them to the carpet at the end and you share/debrief with them and THIS is where you're really teaching them rules/patterns/properties, etc. about math.  I've been using this model in a variety of capacities for about 2 years now, and I still think it's totally wild.  I really like it, but I also definitely think it has some limitations.  The biggest one, for me, is that some kids really don't (ostensibly) seem to make their own meaning, despite repeated exposure to the same idea or concept.  The biggest advantage to me, conversely, is that everyone can start the task in a place that's appropriate to their current understanding/level of learning.  So my questions are this:  have you ever tried a model like this?  Do you use it daily?  Would you try something like this?