An Instructional Routine for “Which One Doesn’t Belong?”

We are currently studying geometry. The standards for geometry list one important understanding to develop before 4th grade, “Reason with shapes and their attributes.” If you click through the link you can read more about the specifics, but the activity that gets students reasoning about shapes and their attributes the most, in my opinion, is Which One Doesn’t Belong? This activity allows students to share their thinking about shapes and their properties without the fear of being wrong. Why? Because every answer is correct as long as you can justify your reasoning! You can read more about how I implement “Which One Doesn’t Belong?” in my class and you can use it for more than just geometry.

But this post is about how I used this activity as a basis for an instructional routine. Continue reading

Daily Math Routines

It all started when Dan Meyer tweeted this Which One Doesn’t Belong prompt…

The MathTwitterBlogosphere had a ball using logical and comical thinking to conceive of ways to not pick the muppet.  I said Daniel Craig didn’t belong because his hands were showing.  Then I decided to send a response…

But all the fun and games got me thinking about my own classes and how I could leverage this fun for my students.  Enter Mary Bourassa and her new #MTBoS site Which One Doesn’t Belong?  Inspired by the work of Christopher DanielsonSteve Wyborney, and Chris Hunter, Mary has created a wonderful new website meant to spark mathematical conversations and debates among students and teachers.  It joins a list of other #MTBoS inspired websites that provide prompts for beginning of class activities. Beginning of class activities are called many different things: do nows, openers, bellwork, warm-ups, but I like to refer to them as daily routines.

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