Do you only allow a certain number of students with each basket? This year I had 18 students, so I normally pulled 2-4 kiddos to my table for a small group lesson and then the remaining 14-16 did a BUILD rotation. Usually I allowed 4 kids to do B (2 groups of 2), 3 students at U, 3 at I, 3 at L, and 3 doing D.
How many items do you put in a basket at a time for the kids to choose from? I only put enough things for the number of kids I allowed to do it at a time. The exception to this was my B bucket- there are probably 10-12 games in there for them to choose from. Also, in the I bucket there are about 30 math books.
Where did you get your baskets? I got these particular baskets on the Target Dollar Spot last year around back to school time. They are a perfect size for BUILD. I hope they come back because I'd love to get some more. However, if they don't, Big Lots and The Dollar Tree always have some great baskets at back to school time.
Do you do whole group? If so for how long? Yes. I use Investigations and Number Corner. My whole group time normally depends on the lesson- sometimes I do a lesson and activity for 30 minutes, and sometimes the lesson is actually just a review that lasts 7-8 minutes.
I also use Investigations and am wondering how you fit this in? Is it a separate part of the day than your hour long Investigations lesson? For anyone else who uses Investigations, instead of doing the allocated 'Math Workshop' I just do BUILD instead. Whatever the book says to do for math workshop, I just make sure I have those activities in my BUILD buckets. For example, in the 1st or 2nd unit, one of the activities is Mystery Boxes. I put those in my U bucket for the next few weeks and my students eventually get to it.
How do you introduce the concept of BUILD to your students? Do you tell your students, "Today we will begin five centers and this will be called 'Build'?" In other words, how do you interest your students in liking this concept? I pretty much just told them that we would begin doing math centers. I explained to them that there are two ways we could do math- a fun way (centers) and a not so fun way (worksheets). I explained to them that I really wanted them to get to do the fun way but that we had to practice practice practice. I started out with only the U bucket (because they are already familiar with maniulatives) and the I bucket. Half the class did I and half the class did U. We practiced BUILD the same way you start out Daily 5. We built stamina, we modeled, we talked about the right way to do it and the wrong way to do it. After the 1st week, I introduced either L or D, it doesn't really matter which one so long as they have another choice. At this point the students are not choosing where to go just yet. I am telling them where to go. The third week I have intro'ed everything but B. By the 3rd or 4th week, they should be ready to do B. Make sure you do this with games they are comfortable with and know how to play because arguments might occur if they don't know what to do.
Once all the buckets are in place, I start pulling 1 student at a time to assess and start small group planning. By the 5th week of school your kiddos should be ready to go. I never had trouble all year with my kids being interested in BUILD. They loved it and on days when the whole group lesson didn't allow time for BUILD, they were not happy campers!
Do you know if the BUILD concept is copyrighted? BUILD is not copyrighted- the ladies in my district who came up with it did it on school time so it will not be copyrighted. Feel free to beg, borrow, and steal! :)
**If I can give anyone a piece of advice about BUILD, it is that it is soo soo flexible and you should feel free to make it your own. If you have a lot of whole group lessons that you HAVE to do- do one 12-15 minute rotation of BUILD a day. If you have a lot of workbooks or worksheets that your district requires you to do, put that in the I bucket. You can easily change this up to fit your needs- there is no one size fits all in teaching. If you have any more questions, please feel free to ask! :)
-Mrs. Thompson
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