6 Small Group Activities for Every Math Teacher (EP13)

6 Small Group Activities For Every Math Teacher

Hello, hello, and welcome to another episode of Elementary Math Chat. As you know, over the last three episodes, we have been talking about how to differentiate and scaffold the activities that you do in small group instruction. But I didn’t go into a lot of detail about the kind of activities you can do.

So, today I’m going to share six of my favorite activities to use in small groups, some of which are ideal for differentiation like we talked about last week. I will also share a few suggestions for what skills you can pair these activities with.

So, let’s go ahead and get started with my first suggestion, which is task cards. Task cards really have stood the test of time, and I think it’s because there are just so many different ways to use them. In fact, my episode next week is dedicated to all the different ways that you can use task cards beyond just in small groups. But we’re going to talk about how to use them in small groups today.

I think another reason they’re so popular is because they last forever. Once you print them, and you’ll want to print them on cardstock, but once you print them and laminate them, they can last as long as you want them to.

Another reason why I believe they’ve stood the test of time is because there are plenty of sets to choose from. So, chances are you’ll be able to find what you need, and there are a lot of great freebies out there as well. So, I can pretty much guarantee you that task cards are not going anywhere. They’re going to be around for a really long time.

Well, let’s go ahead and talk about how you can use them with your small groups. There were two main ways that I used task cards in small groups, and it really all depended on the format of the task card set.

A lot of times the questions within the task cards increased in difficulty, and in that case what I would do is I would divide the task cards up into groups, maybe three groups or four groups, depending on their difficulty, and then I would allow my students to choose the level that was appropriate for them. I love it when task cards are designed that way, because it makes it really nice if you do want to divide them up into different levels.

But then other times, they’ll just be a mixture of question types, and that’s nice in certain situations as well. For example, one of my task card sets is on Measuring Angles, and there are a lot of different question types. Some of them have the rays lined up with the zero-degree mark, and some of them are not lined up with the zero-degree mark. Some of the angles are facing the left side, some are facing the right side. And then other questions give them one ray and they have to construct the other array to make a certain angle measure.

So, there’s a pretty good variety of question types about angles within this set, and I would want to make sure that my students were exposed to every single type of question. So, in this case, I wouldn’t divide them up by levels because it’s not like their level of difficulty changes, I would just make sure that each student had a variety of question types.

So, those are the two main ways that I used task cards with my small group. Again, either dividing them up by levels and letting them choose which questions to answer or putting together a variety of question types for them to solve.

Now, if you’re in a time crunch, and you don’t have the time to prepare task cards, you can use my second suggestion, which is to write problems on the board. I did this a lot because I had a really large whiteboard behind my teacher table, and it required very little prep on my end.

In the last few episodes, I mentioned how I divided my levels up according to the traffic light colors. So, I created three sets of questions and labeled the categories red, yellow, and green. Red questions were a little simpler, yellow were on grade level, and then green questions were more challenging. When they came to my table, they could pick and choose what problems they wanted to complete.

So, let’s say I require them to complete four problems. If it’s a skill they’re not feeling confident with, they might start by completing two red and then move up to two yellow. If they are feeling confident, they might start at yellow and complete three of those and then move up and try a challenge question in green. It didn’t really matter to me. They just had to get four done.

This worked really well as a small group activity, and it wasn’t anything fancy. I just wrote problems on the board for them to practice. Sometimes a simple activity is just as good.

Obviously, this is going to work better for skills that are easily written on the board, like addition and subtraction, or multiplication and division. There really aren’t too many skills that you can’t write on the board. So, just consider how simple it is to write problems on the board, and also make sure you take a picture of these questions and put them in your lesson plans. That way you have the questions saved for the next year.

My third suggestion for small groups is similar to writing problems on the board. But instead, you’re going to type or write these questions within a three-column table, and then all you have to do is print a few copies and put them on your teacher table for students to refer to. So, they’re not looking at the board for the questions. They’ll be looking at the printed copy that you have on the table.

I would recommend making this in PowerPoint versus Word. I just found it a lot easier to use, and again, I had three levels of questions. One column was red, and those were the simpler questions. One column was yellow, and those were on grade level, and then one column was green, and those were more challenging.

Some concepts were a little easier to come up with questions than others were. But whenever I got stuck, I would just look in their math workbook, and I would grab questions from there. Once you come up with your questions, then you don’t have to redo it every single year. You don’t have to worry about taking pictures of it like the previous example. You have this one saved, and if you need to reprint it in the years to come, you can do so.

So, this is another one that’s extremely low prep, and it’s a good one if you want to differentiate your question sets. But you don’t always have to have differentiated activities. So next, I’ll share three additional activities that bring a little more fun to your teacher center.

My fourth suggestion for small groups is to incorporate some sort of matching activity. What I love about matching activities is that they actually can help students check their work. If they can’t find their match, they know they did something wrong. So, it brings in a bit of error analysis to the activity, which is always a good thing.

The great thing about matching activities is they are pretty engaging on their own. Just the idea of finding a match is fun for them, but one way to make them even more engaging is to add a theme.

For example, one of my favorite matching activities has this really cute milk and cookies theme to it. It’s a multiplication matching activity where students match the multiplication problem, which is written on a cookie, to its answer, which is written on a glass of milk. Of course, their favorite part was when they were finished, they got to enjoy an actual cookie. So, that was a fun way to add a little motivation and engagement to this activity, and it’s one of my best sellers every year.

I’ve got a couple different sets that I will link to in the show notes. One of them is perfect for third grade because it is all basic facts. And then for fourth grade teachers, I also have sets that are two-digit by one-digit, three-digit by one-digit, and then four-digit by one-digit. You can buy them all together, and that’s what I did in my small group. That way they could pick the level of difficulty that they felt comfortable with.

I also love that they can use any method. They can use the area model method, partial product, algorithm, or expanded form, and that also means that you can use this at any point in your multiplication unit. So, this one is a really fun matching activity, and I know you will enjoy it as well.

So, I created the milk and cookies activity first, and then I thought, well, what else goes together? So, my next matching activity I did was with eggs and bacon, and I did this with two-digit multiplication, specifically the partial product method.

For this one, the multiplication problems are written on the bacon, and the answers are written on the eggs. They enjoy this one as well, and I’ll also have it linked in the show notes if you want to take a look.

I have one more matching activity that has a fossil theme to it. But you can actually take this idea and apply it to really anything. I came up with this idea because we were always teaching multiplication during our fossil unit, and fossils are engaging on their own. So, I decided to blend the two ideas together.

I took a set of fossil matching cards where one had the actual plant or animal before it was fossilized, and then the other one had the fossil. So, I took these matching cards and flipped them over to the blank side. On one of them, I wrote a multiplication problem, and then on the other, I wrote the answer. When they came to my table, the cards were all faced down. They could not see the fossils. They only saw the multiplication problems and the answers.

So, they picked a card with a multiplication problem on it, they solved the problem, and then they looked for the matching answer. When they found the card that had their answer on it, they flipped the cards over to check that the fossils matched, and if so, they knew their answer was correct.

I did this for an observation lesson once and it was so much fun, and it worked really well. So, find a set of matching picture cards, it can be math-related, science-related, it can be anything-related, and write problems and answers on the back to create your own matching activity.

Now, I did this for multiplication, but you can do it for division, addition, and subtraction, as well as anything with fractions or decimals. It just depends on how large your matching cards are.

I know my matching examples have all had themes so far, and while I love a good theme, they work just fine without one. You can just write problems on the board and have the answer choices on cards or sticky notes that are in the middle of the table. And just like the other matching activities, once they solve their problem, they can try to find their match.

Another version of this is kind of the opposite where you would give them task cards to solve, and you would have the answer choices written on the board. They can even get up and circle the answers to eliminate the choices if you want. But both of these matching activities work well, even without a theme.

Let’s move on to my fifth suggestion for a small group activity, and this one is to have students sort items into categories. I also like to add an extension activity to this one because sometimes it is a really quick activity, and I’ll give you a couple of examples of those as well.

One idea you can try is to give them a list of fractions and have them sort the fractions into less than, greater than, or equal to one-half. That would be the first part of this activity. For the extension activity, have them take a couple of sets of fractions within the greater than column and compare those. For example, let’s say that they have seven-eighths and four-fifths in that greater than column. They would take those two fractions and write a comparison statement, seven-eighths is greater than four-fifths.

You can do the same thing with the less than column. If they have one-third and two-fifths in the less than one-half column, have them compare those two fractions. It’ll take a lot more thought to compare these fractions that are close in value versus comparing them to one-half. So, this is a great extension activity. 

Another idea for fractions is to sort them into fractions that are in simplest form and then fractions that are not in simplest form. Then as your extension activity, you can have them simplify the fractions that are not in simplest form.

Here’s another idea if you teach prime and composite numbers. Let’s say you give them 10 numbers, and they have to sort them into either prime or composite. That would be their first step. Then have them take a few of their composite numbers and list all of their factors either in a t-chart or in a list, however you teach that.

And here’s a little bonus idea that can work for a lot of different skills. This would be an extension activity. You can have them take their answers and compare them in some way, like ordering the answers to three problems they solved from least to greatest.

For example, if they are dividing decimals, and they have to do three division problems at your small group, have them keep track of their answers, and then order those answers from least to greatest. I think this is a really creative way to embed an additional skill into what they’re already doing. You can even call it your exit ticket. So, they have to complete this activity to exit your small group.

My sixth and final suggestion for small groups is a four-section activity mat. I’m just going to call it an activity mat just for simplicity. These are really great to use as a review center because they have four sections, and you can combine multiple skills in one activity.

I used activity mats a lot, and I have a couple on TPT that I will link in the show notes. I have one on factors and multiples that also combines prime and composite numbers. I have one on rounding where they take one number and round it to four different place values, which I think is good because then they can see the similarities and differences between all of the answers.

I have another one on area and perimeter and it combines all of those skills together, and I also have one on addition and subtraction word problems.

If you’re not familiar with what an activity mat looks like, normally there’s a space in the middle for them to either pick a number or spin or roll a number, and then they complete the activity mat around on that number.

For example, when I used the factors and multiples activity mat, I had my students roll two dice to get two numbers, and I had them add these numbers together. So, if they rolled a four and a six, they would use the number 10, and if they rolled a five and a three, they would use the number eight.

I also gave them the option of using 12-sided dice, and you know, I don’t think I mentioned this last week. But using dice is a great way to differentiate. If they use the regular dice, they’re obviously going to have smaller numbers, and if they use the 12-sided dice, they’re going to have much larger numbers and more challenging work.

If you currently don’t have 12-sided dice, they are great to have on hand, and I will put a link in the show notes if you want to grab a set of these. My students always enjoyed using them.

So again, these are great to use before a test, or maybe at the end of a nine weeks, and you want to do a review before a benchmark test you have to take. I would also use them for state testing, and I would put four random questions in each section.

One might have a question on comparing fractions. Another one would be prime and composite. One would have a long division problem. One would have a multiplicative comparison. It’s just such an easy way to review multiple skills, and it’s very low prep. All you have to do is print and put it in a sheet protector and you are done.

So, those are my six ideas that you can use for small group activities. Let’s revisit them one more time before I wrap up with today’s teaching tip of the week. Three activities that work well for leveled question sets are task cards, writing problems on the board, and writing problems within a three-column chart to print and place on your table. Three additional activities are matching and sorting activities and activity mats.

All right, we made it to the end, which means it is time for today’s teaching tip of the week. I know some of you are pretty techie, and so you may already know this tip. But if you ever want to play a YouTube video, but you are worried about an ad popping up while you’re playing the video, there is something simple you can do to prevent this from happening.

Once you have your YouTube video pulled up, go into the URL and put a dash in between the T and the U, so it would look like YOUT-U within the URL. Once you have the dash there, go ahead and hit enter, and it will generate a new link for you to play the video through. This time there won’t be any ads popping up, and when it’s finished it won’t go on to another video. It’s a very safe way to play a YouTube video.

So, the next time you play a YouTube video, you won’t have to stress about what’s going to come up. You can just sit back and relax and enjoy a few moments of rest.

All right, that is all for this week’s episode. I hope you enjoyed it. Have a great week and I will see you next Tuesday.