differentiating guided math

Differentiating math instruction and math materials in kindergarten is something I tried new this past year. I worked really hard at coming up with three levels of pacing most of my teaching. It sounds like I'm teaching from a basal when I say that I plan for a middle, higher and lower grouping... but I've got to start somewhere.

Creating lessons that are unique to each group does occur, but I do have a general flow to follow. (Click here to read more about planning the curriculum). Normally the way I introduce and the level of independence are the biggest differences in the way I handle groups in addition to the different levels of content.

Since I have four math zones that are going on during our math time, there needs to be different levels within each. Here's the system we use to keep it kinder-friendly.
In the teacher zone, (meeting with small groups) I use my curriculum plan and lesson plan templates to meet the needs of each group. For example, in the picture below, let's look at the middle week. You can see that I have my group that needs the most scaffolding and repetition, is warming up by counting to 100 by ones (the arrow pointing to 100... my shorthand).

My middle groups will be counting by fives and tens on their own colored hundreds charts and my highest group will be doing the same, but by saying, "5+5=10, 10+5=15, 15+5=20..." You can see that as a wrap-up activity, they are all playing war to compare numbers working on K.CC.7 (Compare two written numbers between 1 and 10, and state which is more or less.) My lower groups are working mainly with numbers 0-12, my middle groups are using 0-20 and the highest group is using numbers 0-99.


Making a system for keeping things organized and kinder friendly was where the stars came into play. I now use them on everything. The more stars, the more support the students generally need. The picture clue of stars meets the needs of my non-readers and helps make clean-up faster!

The stars are used in each zone for kinders to get, use and return materials. It works for us. What works for you?