Ep 46: Consolidation and Reflection For K-2 after Math Tasks and Problem Solving Sessions

Transforming your classroom into a Building Thinking Classroom is an exciting journey—but when it comes to consolidating learning and reflecting on problem-solving tasks, it can feel tricky with younger students. Between stamina struggles, time constraints, and building those metacognitive skills, what’s a teacher to do?

In this episode, we’re tackling those challenges with fun and effective strategies to wrap up your thinking tasks:

🌶️ Check Your Understanding Questions Use “mild,” “medium,” and “spicy” extension questions to give students a choice and push their thinking a little further.

🎲 Games for Consolidation Turn reflection time into play with quick, themed games that tie into your tasks and can double as math centers later!

📝 Meaningful Notes Help students record their learning in creative ways—like fill-in-the-blanks, circling items, or drawing—so they can revisit important strategies and takeaways later.

💡 The 4-Quadrant Method Break down strategies and reflections into bite-sized pieces for young learners to understand and remember.

Whether it’s through playful games, choice-driven questions, or creative note-taking, these approaches will keep your students engaged and make math reflection meaningful and manageable.

Links & Resources:

👉 Blog Post

👉 Grab Kindergarten, 1st Grade, or 2nd Grade Thinking Task Bundles here!

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Let’s make consolidation time just as exciting as problem-solving! 🎉

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Reflection, consolidation can always be tricky timewise for anybody, making sure you have the time to do it.

(00:07):
Also for younger kids, sometimes they just don't have the stamina or attention to get to it.
Today we're going to talk about three different ways you can use consolidation in your classroom
with younger grades after you've completed a problem-solving session.
Hello and welcome to Making Number Sense Make Sense, a podcast for elementary teachers,

(00:34):
specifically early elementary teachers, looking to really make an impact in the number sense of their students.
When first starting a building thinking classroom style makeover, I guess, to your classroom and the way that you teach problem-solving,
you're really just trying to get through the first toolkit.
Something I was never really sure about was the whole consolidation piece, reflection piece, however you want to call it.

(00:58):
Just because I know myself, time runs out sometimes and sometimes after your kids have been doing something for so long,
it can be hard to kind of pull them back.
So I've tried several different ways to kind of make this work for my students and I'd like to share those with you today.
The first is the good old check your understanding question, so the mild, medium and spicy questions that I present to the students

(01:22):
and they can choose the one that they want to do.
This is great because it really gives your students an opportunity to kind of pick the difficulty of what they want to work on,
what they feel comfortable with, and you can really see like what is really sticking for them and clicking for them
and what might you need to work a little bit harder on or come back to at a later date

(01:43):
if you're noticing the same kind of errors in your students.
So that's always a good go-to, just three different problems that you can have for the kids.
For younger students specifically, it can be a little challenging because oftentimes if it's a word problem,
they wouldn't necessarily be able to read it.
So having visuals there or a sheet that they can kind of refer back to can be helpful.

(02:04):
If that's something you want to try but you're kind of running into the but they can't read what's on the board situation,
that might be something you want to try.
Kind of along the same vein, some tasks I found just don't necessarily lend themselves to check your understanding questions,
but I still want them to practice and reinforce the things that they have been working on at their boards.

(02:29):
So that's when I like to throw in a game that goes with what we're doing, maybe a little more challenging,
maybe just as a review, maybe it's style to kind of go with whatever the theme of the question was.
So it kind of feels like it's a continuation, but it's something that might be a little more hands-on,
a little more game-like, so it feels a little different, but they're still practicing the skills that you had been working on.

(02:55):
I like this a lot and it bonus doubles as a math center that you can use the next day
because your students already know how to play, it's making a connection, building connections to what they had worked on previously,
and who doesn't love center time? It's one of my students' favorite times being in stations, being in centers,
so anything I can do to kind of bridge the gap works for me.

(03:18):
And the final consolidation, which I wouldn't necessarily use too often for kindergarten because writing can be its own challenge,
but you can definitely use the notes, creating notes, meaningful notes strategy,
where your students will have a fill-in-the-blank section and have examples of different strategies that they saw that they liked,

(03:39):
or that made sense to them as well as their own strategy that they used,
and kind of reflecting on what strategy might they like to use in the future,
and kind of an overall reflection of different things that might be helpful when they're using this skill,
or things that their forgetful self might need to remember if they're doing a similar problem,
so their future self has a little reminder or cheat sheet.

(04:02):
The example that comes to mind is if I'm doing a task where students have to measure things twice
with a smaller object and a longer object, kind of like the cube queen and the popsicle stick king task that I talked about previously,
there's a time when using cubes might be better for measuring if you're measuring something small,
whereas using popsicle sticks would be better if you're measuring larger things,

(04:24):
so that kind of knowledge can help them reflect on what they did and when it might be best to do something different in the future,
and even though it doesn't necessarily have too much to do with numbers in a literal sense,
that kind of thinking can also help them when they're doing other kinds of problem solving,
like when is it best to use a counting on strategy versus a double 10 strategy or a jump strategy,

(04:47):
kind of creating that flexibility, metacognition about the way that they are going about problem solving,
so none of these ways are perfect, they all have their time and place,
but these might be things that you might want to try if you're looking to change up the way that you consolidate
or be purposeful, questions that are related to what you just did, so check your understanding questions,

(05:09):
a game that might be something a little bit different, exciting that you can use in a different day,
or creating meaningful notes that don't have to be giant, especially in the younger grades,
they're not going to be writing a ton, just something simple that they can do.
Also remember you don't have to do every single section of every single thing,
maybe for notes they're just doing a fill in the blank, or they're just picking one example

(05:32):
that somebody else did that makes sense to them, just little bits here and there as they build up
their stamina and as they get used to reflecting on the work that they've done. Let me know if you
try any of these consolidation types with your kids and which one worked best for you.