Thinking Maps Thursday

Over the summer, I took a Thinking Maps class, and I loved it! I wish I had taken the class ten years ago. One of the big AH HA moments I got out of the class was learning two important things about using Thinking Maps.  

The first thing is that starting in kindergarten whenever possible you want to use all eight maps. Of course, you don't teach them at the same time. 

The other thing, I learned, was that the goal of the class is for students to create maps independently. So, thinking kindergarten I am doing a ton of modeling with Thinking Maps knowing eventually, my students will do this independently. 


Below are some of the ways I have incorporated Thinking maps in the classroom. (To learn more aboutThinking maps click here).

Tree Map

The tables in my class are labeled with shapes. I just had each child decorate a little square that you can see the shape. 

On Thursdays in my class, it is always going to be Thinking Maps Thursday. I am trying to make my morning messages simple. This week we went apple picking so the message connected to that.

Circle Map

The class struggled with the question What Do We Know About Math? What You can see around the Circle Map is the frame of reference. The frame of reference is how do we know this about math.

 

The Number of the Day routine 

Bubble Map

At math time, the students are sorting buttons. One of the lessons in this investigation has students describe a button. The Bubble Map was perfect to have students use adjectives to describe the button.

 

Double Bubble 

Comparing two buttons

Bubble Bag 

On Monday, we always do the Bubble Bag. It's Mystery Monday! 

 

Brace Map-Whole to Part

These are the sight words we are learning this week.