Calling all Mountain Math/Language users...??

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Home : 2006 : November : 18

Calling all Mountain Math/Language users...??
By TeacherCarrie

I have been using the 4th grade level Mountain Math and Language for almost 2 years now. This is also my 2nd year of teaching. I love the repetition of the standards covered in Mountain Math. I think it has worked wonders
for many of my students and I feel it shows in my Math test scores.

But, here's the thing. I use it for morning warm-up, 5 a day, 5 days a week. I have the kids work on it first thing for about 15 minutes and then we go over it for about 5-10 minutes on the overhead. Many of my students still don't finish those 5 problems, especially the ones who need it the most.

There's

another issue. I just bought my own copy of Sitton Spelling and want to begin taking a 15 minute block (b/c that is really all I could muster out of my packed schedule) to teach the patterns, etc. In order to do this, the only place I can take the 15 minutes from is the time when we do Mountain Language. We do it right before we go to lunch during the 15 minutes after our mandated 30 minute ELD instruction time. This means, I have to move Mt. Language to fit into the morning warm-up with Mt. Math. Of course, since my students have issues finishing Mt. Math, there's no way they'll be able to do both 5 of Math and 5 of Language.

Here's what I'm thinking. I'm either going to cut out several of the Mt. Math "problems" and focus only on the huge pieces that make up a large percentage of our testing blueprint (standards most tested) or I'm thinking of concentrating on only a few standards each week, rather than all of them. But that might mean cutting down on the repetition and seeing certain standards only once a month in the Mt. Math.

I do also use a Daily Math practice sheet everyday to warm up for Math. This is required by our admin, which is fine with me, I like doing it. But I don't want to cut out Mt. Math, b/c I truly feel like it does help, as difficult as it is.

So...that was a pretty lengthy explanation. My BIG question is, how do you use it in your room, how often, when, do you only use parts of it, etc.?

And also, what do you think about my projected plan in order to fit in the spelling...which way do you think might work better? Cutting down to the most important "problems" on Math or only covering a few each week, then moving on to the next few the next week...I'd be doing maybe 2 or 3 a day rather than 5.

Gosh, I hope that all made sense. It's been running a mile a minute through my brain, and I really just needed to type it out and get some feedback.