Ep 9: Thinking for Starting Building Thinking Classrooms? Start Here!

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You've read the Building Thinking Classroom's book.

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You're ready to get started, but need help working through exactly what you're going

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to do.

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The nitty gritty of setting up a building thinking classroom.

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This is for you.

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Hello, and welcome to Making Number Sense Makes Sense, a podcast for elementary teachers,

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specifically early elementary teachers, looking to really make an impact in the number sense

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of their students.

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If you're here, I think you've read the Building Thinking Classroom's book and have

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heard teachers raving about it and you are ready to get started.

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Now, I read this book last year.

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I did it for an entire year and I have a previous episode all about my results.

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If you're curious about how it worked out, spoiler, it worked out awesome.

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But there's lots of little nitty gritty things that you need to think about in order to make

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it work in your classroom.

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I'm going to share with you those things today.

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The first thing you need is a place for your students to work.

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Now, if you're in a K to 2 classroom, you're going to want enough spaces for each pair.

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If you're in a 3 and above, you're going to need spaces for each trio.

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Now, for younger kids, I have had them work in trios before.

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If I had an odd number of students or something like that, it did not work as well.

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It really didn't.

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They're still working on developing group work mentality and having it being able to share

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work and space and the marker between three people.

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So, two people definitely works best, but it can work with three people.

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So, you're going to need to think about the spaces or where they're going to be working.

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What vertical non-permanent surfaces are they going to be using and what materials do you

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need to gather?

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Now, speaking of materials, you're going to need a vertical non-permanent surface.

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Now, I was really lucky that school that I was in just got renovated so they did have

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whiteboards all over the place.

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I realized that is not the case for everyone.

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So, what you can use instead is a dry-race sleeve and paper.

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Now, their workspace is not as big, but it's definitely something you can use and it can

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make shift any corner into a space where they can potentially work.

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And overall, the biggest thing is that they're standing.

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I did have some spaces that were not vertical.

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I just didn't have the area.

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It was just a U-table that was flat, but if the kids were sitting down, they did not stick

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with it as long as if they were standing up.

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So, once they removed the chairs, even though it wasn't vertical, not ideal, it still worked

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out.

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So, make sure that your surface is non-permanent and that your kids can stand when they are

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working.

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You'll also need erasers.

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Big thing.

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Erasers for them.

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So, dry-race markers, erasers, vertical non-permanent surface.

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I also used magnetic clips to clip the dry-race sleeve so that's something you might want

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to consider if you're looking into making your own spaces.

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And the last thing that I used is your partner cards.

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Now I have these color-coded partner cards that you can get for free at the link below

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along with a task that you might want to try.

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But when I was randomizing, which brings me to my next step, choose your randomizing method.

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Now I used classroom screen for computer-generated partnerships or the partner cards.

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I started off with partner cards and the kids definitely preferred picking an actual physical

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card than getting a computer-generated partner.

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For a while, I think they really secretly thought that I was still picking their partners,

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but I definitely wasn't.

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But even towards the end, when they understood that I'm not picking it, it just kind of spits

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out partnerships, they preferred the card.

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So I would suggest using cards.

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The next thing you're going to want to do is pick your schedule.

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Then are you going to do building thinking classrooms?

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I'm not sure if there's a right or a wrong way, but I'm just going to tell you what I

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did and how it worked out for me.

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So I did my big building thinking classroom task on Mondays.

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My reason for Monday is because it was a weird schedule.

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I had a double special, so there wasn't a lot of time to get into a full math workshop

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or anything like that, but the perfect amount of time to get into a task, give them work

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time, give them time to consolidate their learning.

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So that just was what worked out for me.

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So I did a full building thinking classroom session once a week, and I sprinkled in different

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partnership activities throughout the week when we were doing other things.

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And that really worked out for the kids to practice the social skills involved with working

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in a partnership.

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And they came to prefer working in partners versus working on their own.

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And I was all right with it.

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I'm okay with it.

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I prefer them working together, especially working on the social skills, which is so

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big for young kids.

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And it's something that is really challenging for them.

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Now I was a little concerned about, like, how are they learning this?

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Like, when they have to do an assessment, they're going to have to work on their own.

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They're not going to be able to work with a partner.

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I didn't need to have worried because they did fabulous on their assessments, working

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on their own.

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But I think the experience of having a year full of being really creative thinkers and

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listening to other people and gaining other ideas really helped them to be able to take

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that and apply it to new situations, especially even if they were working on their own.

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So I wouldn't worry too much about that, especially for younger kids.

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Their assessments are not as high stakes, especially if you're in the United States

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when high stakes testing doesn't really start until third grade.

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They're in kindergarten, first grade, second grade.

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They don't necessarily need to be so concerned about that.

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They won't have to do that.

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So I kind of just let that go.

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The next thing you're going to want to think about is defining your goals with your students

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and how you want your classroom to run.

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So you need to picture in your head, if you had a perfect problem solving session, what

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would that look like?

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So I'll describe to you kind of what I envisioned, and then you might think about how you might

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use that for your classroom and how you might tweak it.

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So when I thought of the perfect problem solving session, I wanted to see both partners discussing

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discussing the problem.

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I wanted to see both partners sharing the marker and really listening to each other.

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I wanted to see kids who, if for some reason they needed to go to the bathroom, get a drink

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of water, they would go do that really quickly and come back, not necessarily needing to

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ask for permission, but just kind of go let it be free flowing.

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That's not the case for all teachers who want that, but that's kind of what I wanted.

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And I wanted them to be really respectful to each other and listen to each other and

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understand that your partner might have some valuable input, but also your classmates might

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have some valuable input, that your classmates are a great resource for you to use and that

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if you are a partner and you noticed another team, another group, looking at your paper

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or looking at your, excuse me, whiteboard, that you didn't assume they were trying to

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copy you.

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You wanted to assume that they were trying to think of an idea from you that might help

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them solve their problem.

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I also kind of wanted them to be able to flow in and out in a purposeful way.

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So what I mean by that is I wanted the kids to be able to, if they were really stuck,

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they could ask me, they didn't usually ask me, they preferred to ask another group what

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they were doing or kind of how they were solving the problem and they listened better to each

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other than they ever did to me for something like that.

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So listening to a peer and how they figured it out really supported them in growing their

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own thinking.

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So I wanted them to have the freedom to be able to move around the room and get ideas

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from other kids.

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Now, my caveat is it did not start like that.

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They started more in their spaces and then once they got the hang of it and understood

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that if I'm going somewhere else, it's for support.

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It's not to just talk to my friend who's on the other side of the classroom.

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That's kind of what I envisioned.

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So to make that work, I really needed the kids to practice sharing their marker.

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I needed them to practice talking to each other.

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I needed them to practice understanding that they had a common goal and working towards

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that goal.

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So when it came to my tasks, especially my non curricular tasks, that's kind of what my

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focus was.

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My focus was focus concentrating on one outcome.

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Our goal is to do X and we need to work together to make that happen.

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My goal for another non curricular task was sharing the marker.

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I had them do intervals like you have it for a minute, you have it for a minute.

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I didn't love that just because it ended up being more work for me to kind of like set

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the timer or make sure that it was working or make sure that they were switching.

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I wanted it to be more free flowing.

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So I started that way.

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So they got kind of a feel of it, but needed to make sure that both of them had the marker.

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I also wanted them to practice getting to the right space.

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If you've taught kindergarten, you know that especially at the beginning of the year, it's

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like herding cats, trying to get the kids to walk in a line.

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I'll face the right way.

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It's a mess and it requires a lot of practice.

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So that was another thing I wanted them to focus on.

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I gave them something super engaging to do once they got to their space, but they needed

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to make sure that they found their partner and figured out what space they were supposed

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to be at.

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So I think the task that I used for that was I said, there's a box of blocks in your space.

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You need to find the right space and see if you can build the tallest tower that you

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can together.

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And so they were really motivated to get over there.

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They found their partner right away, went to their space and that practice really helped

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them get used to how to get started.

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So thinking about what you want and what you might see, those are things you want to think

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about how you want the classroom to look and how you want it to run and what tasks or what

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items you might need to do in order to make that happen.

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Speaking of tasks, that was kind of your next step.

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Figure out how you want your tasks to work, what access you want kids to have to manipulatives,

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how they go about getting them, can they just get anything that they need?

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Are you putting stuff out for them?

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One of those little things to make it really flow.

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And speaking of the non-curriculars, I really feel like the non-curricular tasks job was

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to get us in the routine of getting to the right space, working with any partner and

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really listening to each other and being a partner.

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So those are my first tasks that I did with the kids.

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Had those things in mind, really not too much to do with math at all.

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And because we laid that groundwork, once we started to get into more curricular tasks,

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they had the routine down, they knew what to do, they knew where to go, they knew that

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even if this partner was not my best friend that I wanted to really work with, they might

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get their best friend next time and it's just for today.

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Next time you'll get a new partner, any new partner.

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So that's what worked out for me.

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Now if you're wanting some ideas for tasks, I will leave below some links to some really

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helpful teacher collaboration groups that are working on building thinking classrooms.

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I'll also send you a link to a blog post that I did about some of my tasks and kind of how

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I go about doing them.

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And if you're looking for an example of a free task, you can get that at the description

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below as well.

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If you have any questions, make sure to send me an email or you can DM me on Instagram.

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I am happy to help you and help you talk through what you need to get started for a successful

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year of building thinking classrooms.