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Leveraging the Warm-up


Thanks to Mel, Nathan and Brent Truchon at EMS for encouraging me to blog. I needed that nudge. Also, I'm still learning how to do this. #growthmindset

This graphic from David Sousa’s How the Brain Learns shows the two “prime time learning” moments in a 40 min. class: roughly minute 3-13, and then again in the last 5.  While many of us, myself included, have used the warm-up routine as a way to settle kids in to class, the warm-up should also take advantage of that prime-time learning. 

Here are some ways to get the most out of the warm-up:
  • Create warm-ups with multiple questions: Students work at different paces; establish an expectation that students will work for the full 3-5 minutes, but some students may only answer 1 question while others may answer all 5.
  • Expect independent work: Kids should work for the whole 3-5 minutes, irrespective of how many problems or questions they complete.
  • Cumulative Review:  Write warm-up questions or problems that review the previous days’ material, plus one that reviews older material.
  • Allow for choice: If there are 4 increasingly difficult warm-up questions, reinforce that students have choice: they can start with whichever one they want, as long as they work for the whole time.


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  1. UnknownOctober 26, 2019 at 3:41 AM

    I've been using "Do Now" warm-ups pretty consistently in my science classes this year, and while they definitely were connected to the curriculum and learning goals, I tended to design them more as pre-thinking exercises in light of what the upcoming lesson or science-related vocabulary work. Cumulative review? Didn't really occur to me until I read this post! Definitely going to rethink my Do Nows going forward to include review as well as more choice.

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