Math Shelf Hands-on Lessons

Watch this video about Math Shelf Hands-on Lessons

In addition to playing Math Shelf on the tablet, we've created over 300 Math Shelf Differentiated Hands-on Lessons to improve young students' math learning.  These lessons require no teacher prep, use math materials teachers have in their classrooms, and are differentiated to match children's varied math levels. Every hands-on lesson takes about 15 minutes, provides step-by-step visual instructions, and was designed by preschool and Kindergarten teachers.  

When students play Math Shelf on their tablet, each child’s math knowledge is collected and analyzed in our database.  Math Shelf uses student's achievement data to group kids for instruction.  More advanced children get assigned challenging math lessons, while children with beginning math skills receive foundational instruction.  Differentiating teaching ensures that each student receives lessons where they will experience challenge and success.  

How Math Shelf Lessons Work
When teachers sign in to their Math Shelf Dashboard, they click the Hands-on Lessons link to view their Lesson Calendar.  Clicking on a blue asterisk shows the student names in each group, and the lesson the teacher will teach.  Group 1 lessons are for beginning math learners, Group 2 intermediate students, and Group 3 advanced children (see right image below). 

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Teachers can preview the lesson for each group by clicking the Lesson link.  The images below show the Group 1,  2 and 3  lessons.  
 

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Before teaching Math Shelf Hands-on Lessons, please read our recommendations for how to set up your classroom for small group instruction here.   Finally, most lessons use materials teachers already have in their classrooms like counting bears, unifix cubes, dice, dominos, playing cards, etc.   For materials teachers don’t have, we've created a Materials Guide with links to purchase from Amazon. 

If you'd like to try Math Shelf lessons email John Schacter.