Daily Warm Up Routine

Edit: This was my first post about warm ups. I’ve posted more about them here, here, here…or just go to the tag Warm Up.

I experimented this year with my daily warm up routine.  I have had the following routine for warm ups since the beginning of the year: Monday Estimation, Tuesday Patterns, Wednesday Questions, Thursday Would You Rather, Friday Choice.  I print out a sheet that the students keep for two weeks.  This is the worksheet I use (I used to have a cool font for the days but when my computer died I lost that and now I can’t remember what it was): Daily Warm Up Sheet

Monday Estimation is always taken from Andrew Stadel’s Estimation 180.  Sometimes there are themes that span multiple weeks.  I started the percent error part about a third of the way through the year once we had learned about what a percent is.  I’m disappointed in the fact that I still have to remind my students how to find percent error.  Next year I may start it right away and just spend some time talking about what it means – I’ll be a little behind at first but I’ll make it up in the end.

Tuesday Patterns is all from Fawn Nguyen’s Visual Patterns.  I feel like this is the least accessible day – I still have some students that just give up after drawing the next step.  I think to fix this I could use more random selecting of participants from the beginning so that all students are used to participating.  I need to stress more that the way students see the pattern is just as important as the formula.  I have many students who want to be the first one to give the formula but that makes the rest of the class feel like their thoughts are no longer useful.

Wednesday Questions is always from Dan Meyer’s 101 Questions.  I think this is most students’ favorite day.  They love seeing the images or videos and finding something mathematical to ask about it.

Thursday Would You Rather is usually from John Steven’s Would You Rather? Blog.  I think this is my favorite.  I am always amazed at the reasoning I hear from students for both sides.  I do not limit them to mathematical reasons.  I think that if I did that, I wouldn’t have as many students even try to come up with an answer and reason.  With that said, most students do find a mathematical reason.

Friday Choice is where I give the students a choice on what they have for the warm up.  They vote with Plickers.  Sometimes it’s a warm up from a day that was missed that week (I am so surprised by how many weeks really don’t have 5 full days of instruction), and sometimes I offer Mindset Moment, Talking Points, or Math Talks.  Mindset Moment is where I show a short video that conveys a message about mindset.  Students are asked to reflect on the video afterwards.  I only offer this once or twice a month because this will get picked just about every time.  Talking Points is where I give them a few statements and they need to talk to a partner about whether they both agree or disagree, or are undecided between the two.  Math talks could be anything really – this is the least picked item and I attribute this to the fact that I didn’t really differentiate it from how I do Tuesday Patterns.  I know more for next year.

The best thing about Fridays is also the reflection piece.  I ask what they’ve learned and what they can improve upon, which is sometimes helpful for the students and me.  But the one good thing has made me feel so connected to my students.  I allow three students to share each Friday and this also started about halfway through the year.  I learn so much about my students this way.

Les étudiants pensent des maths chaque jour.