Meaningful Small Groups in Math, Grades K-5

Meeting All Learners’ Needs in Any Setting

This comprehensive resource provides the what, why, and how for effectively implementing small group instruction to support every student! Part A provides excellent suggestions, clearly based in experience, and Part B pairs important content with small group lesson ideas. Such a great resource for ensuring students develop confidence and competence in mathematics!

In Meaningful Small Groups in Math: Meeting All Learners’ Needs in Any Setting, Kimberly Rimbey offers us detailed suggestions on how to get the most out of students working in small groups. These details cover everything from tasks to group size, from how to form the groups to where these groups, once formed, could work. We learn how to answer questions and prompt thinking, and we are provided with detailed lesson plans, planning templates, and resources across a wide range of K–5 mathematics topics. Kimberly Rimbey leaves no stone unturned. I highly recommend this book to any K–5 teacher who is starting to think about using group work as well as any teacher who wants to reexamine and revitalize their use of group work in the classroom.

Mathematics is a beautiful, human enterprise and all humans should be given the opportunity to properly experience its wonder and awe, even our society's youngest of humans. We want our students to know, and always believe, that they are genuinely invited to mathematics. Dr. Rimbey's resource shows how.

We all know that active engagement—thinking, talking, collaborating, and figuring out—is the key to learning. We also know that small group, teacher-facilitated work is one way to generate this active engagement. But it’s not easy. That’s where Dr. Rimbey’s wonderfully practical and informative book Meaningful Small Groups in Math becomes a powerful resource. With a clear and punchy style—and a slew of examples and models—it’s like Kim was your friend and coach talking with you over coffee about what to do, why to do it, and how to do it when it comes to shifting math instruction for the better for all of our students.

As teachers move away from whole class instruction, they are often challenged by exactly what a small group lesson should look like and how to go about planning one. The sample lessons in this book follow math content trajectories across grade levels, with formative assessment ideas to help teachers form their groups. The Explore Before Explain (Eb4E) approach used in the lessons allows students to actively participate in concept development, with the teacher serving as a facilitator. This is a book that should be on your bookshelf!

Small group instruction is such an important part of the learning cycle. Dr. Rimbey breaks down why and then shows teachers, in plain language, how to set up and successfully run teacher-facilitated small groups. She pays extra attention to how different types of groups are used for different instructional purposes and supports teachers in judiciously matching a type of group with a learning need. As if that weren’t enough, Dr. Rimbey then breaks down the essential pieces of different elementary mathematics topics and then uses those pieces to show how a particular small grouping strategy elevates that content and makes it more accessible to all students. This book is a must-read for any elementary mathematics teacher or leader.

Rimbey raises the use of small groups to an art form. Small groups are the mainstay of much of mathematics instruction in the form of collaborative and cooperative groups, yet understanding how to organize and facilitate small groups is not always a part of teacher preparation programs or professional learning experiences. How can we better make these opportunities an ideal way to foster student thinking and reasoning, the sharing of ideas in safe spaces, and the inquiry-oriented approach we prize? Meaningful Small Groups in Math guides you through this common configuration. With the wisdom and insight Rimbey gleaned from years of experience, you will find what you need to effectively use small groups. Dig in to find practical approaches, routines, content examples, and ways to make each and every child’s voice prominent as they engage in productive ways to showcase their strengths.

With Meaningful Small Groups in Math, Dr. Rimbey offers K–5 teachers a versatile approach to teaching small group lessons in a variety of instructional structures. Her approach is practical, clearly described, and focused on effectively building upon students’ mathematical strengths with well-planned lessons. As a valuable resource for teachers who want to “let math take the lead,” Rimbey includes a Math Small Group Standards Trajectory Document that clearly maps out the interrelatedness of the standards in each domain—something I wish had been available when I was teaching. While the first part of the book provides guidance on how to get started with math small group lessons, the second part of the book delves into how to create and teach rigorous, engaging lessons with sample plans. Both beginning and experienced teachers will find this book to be an invaluable guide for teaching math using small group lessons, which to me is an essential instructional strategy for supporting the needs of all students.

This book offers a wealth of tips, strategies, and resources for designing effective and engaging small group instruction. You will find the answer to any question you can imagine including how small group instruction benefits students, ways to design small group lessons, thoughts on session duration, discussions of group membership, and even ideas for setting up the classroom to maximize small group instruction. The planning ideas related to some critical K–5 math topics (like counting and cardinality, base-ten addition/subtraction and multiplication/ division, and varied fraction and decimal skills) are an added benefit. This is a valuable resource for any teacher interested in beginning, or enhancing, small group instruction in their K–5 classrooms!

Facilitating small group instruction in our math classrooms can be one of the most challenging goals we set out to accomplish each year, but where do we begin? From the size and type of group to what is happening in small groups, and when it’s happening, it can all be overwhelming. Meaningful Small Groups in Math thoughtfully unpacks the smaller nuances and questions surrounding small groups and offers the tools teachers need to meet the needs of the students they support.