As soon as students walked in they could buy tickets, which were the way of gaining entry into playing a game (although tickets could also be cashed in for some prizes).  Then students were given a card that had a grid on it, which they wore around their neck.  Students were given stamps on their cards for winning games, and those stamps were then cashed in for prizes.  There were also raffles that all of the students’ names had been entered into and raffle tickets that parents could buy for baskets that each class had put together.

It was fun to see not only my students, but different grades and even families walking around and enjoying themselves.   My students seemed to really enjoy seeing me there and would run up to me and show me how many stamps they had, what prizes they had received, etc.  I thought it was good that rooms were divided by grade (for example, there were two rooms for the lollipop draw, one that was K-3 and one that was 4-6) because there is a huge maturity difference between my first graders and the sixth graders!  Overall though, it seemed like everyone had a good time, including everyone who was staffing the rooms!

I taught a lesson with the number grids and we analyzed the grid to see what patterns we could find (moving left to right was either adding or subtracting by ones, but moving up or down was either adding or subtracting by tens).  I then had them write answers to addition or subtraction problems on white boards as I said them out loud.  The problems were either adding or subtracting some multiple of ten, and as they got better they had to think of the answers in their head without looking at their number grid.  This caused some issues, but overall it went well.

In Social Studies we started “visiting” Australia and the students were excited to learn how different objects were called different names in Australia (a friend is called “mate”, and cookie is called “biscuit”).  We had issues with one student in particular showing high levels of aggression; he tried stabbing me with a pencil, tried hitting Angela, and he threw pencils at the girl who sits across from him.  He was sent down to the principal’s office after class, but it made me think because it we were able to keep the class under control but there were four teachers there, I can’t imagine trying to handle it alone!  It makes me think that I still have a lot to learn when it comes to classroom management…

On Monday we worked on Everyday Math using flats (100s), longs (10s) and cubes (1s).  This helps the students to visualize larger numbers, but unfortunately there were not enough pieces for all of the students.  Each student was supposed to have a bag with a certain number of each piece, but many students were missing parts, which made the activity difficult and created arguments between the students.  Wednesday we worked with making change when buying items.  Students looked at a page in their book that had pictures of objects and their prices and the students paired up and used coins to buy items and make change.  Unfortunately, the lesson had been “If a shell costs $0.47 and I give $0.50, how much change will I get?”  and the students did not understand why they would not just give $0.47 if that is how much the shell cost.  Using money also created issues because they would give someone else money to “buy” the object and get change back, but once again they are supposed to have a specific amount of money and trading messed up their amounts.

On Thursday I taught a Math lesson introducing the concept of fractions.  We did one whole, halves, thirds and fourths using “crackers” that we cut out of paper.  We talked about how many EQUAL pieces I would need to break my cracker into if I wanted to share it fairly with one friend (or two friends, etc)

The lesson went well, but then we had a workbook page on “What’s My Rule?” boxes (that we’ve done HUNDREDS of times before), but this one used money for the first time.  Instead of saying the rule is +10 and the finding outputs based on inputs such as:

students had rules like +$0.10 and they had inputs such as $0.07.  Most students would then write 17 in the output box, instead of $0.17, so these ended up being a whole class activity instead of individual work.  I also did not think of the fact that Miss Evans and Miss Rogers would not be there, and it is hard to stop and talk to and answer 25 students’ questions on your own.

Overall this week went well considering it is the first week back.  I can’t believe I only have two more weeks there.  It’s going by so quickly!

This was very interesting for me because I really don’t remember learning about rhombuses and trapezoids until 5th or 6th grade when we started doing geometry. We also used templates to trace shapes, but this proved slightly disastrous. The students were putting fingers or pencils in the circle shape and spinning the templates around until they went flying across the room or, even worse, into their neighbor. There were several templates that I ended up taking away because students were not listening when warned to stop…

This week the students were able to get outside for recess, and there was a visible difference in them because of it. They were much calmer after having run off all of their pent-up energy. I also think it would be a good idea to have students get up and stretch when the teacher notices they’re getting restless. Since it is the winter season and students are stuck inside all of the time, sometimes they just need a way to let out their energy, even if it is just having the students do a few jumping jacks or run in place for 30 seconds.

When I told Miss Evans that I wouldn’t be there for the next 2 weeks, she said how much easier it is to teach the Everyday Math series with an extra set of hands, mostly because of all the tools that need to be passed out. The next 3 weeks will be teaching-free, since I have 2 weeks of spring break and then they have a week off. Hopefully I can catch up on sleep!

This week, much like every other week, was consumed by working in our Everyday Math books. I understand that basic math skills are important to students, but I am beginning to see some major pros and cons with this math curriculum. On a positive note, I like how this series brings information from previous lessons into current chapters. Instead of learning a concept and then moving on and forgetting it, the students keep seeing that concept in their Math Journals. In this sense, repetition is a great technique to ensuring that students know what is being told to them. Working on the same types of exercises provides a secure background that they can build upon. In Everyday Math though, I feel like students are not building upon background knowledge. They form a basic knowledge of a concept and that is it. Some of the lessons to introduce new concepts move so quickly that students do not really comprehend what they are supposed to be learning, so when review problems come around later, they are clueless as to what they are supposed to be doing. Also, some of the concepts taught in the series make simple topics more complicated than they need to be. I found an example of this on YouTube. This is a video that illustrates how the Everyday Math series teaches students to do long division.  They try to teach tricks to make math easier, but it just ends up being more confusing.  Not only that, but division is division.  If children are learning a new way that is “easier”, parents are not going to know the tricks and will not be able to help with homework, thereby frustrating the student even more.  Basic math skills are essential in life.  If a series wants to offer tricks, that’s fine, but do so after the student has mastered the basic skill.

I don’t mean to say that what is present in this series is detrimental to the education of students, but I feel like this series should be paired with something else to provide a more well-rounded math curriculum.

On Wednesday I taught my first lesson. I taught one of the sections out of everyday math, and overall I thought it went over well. I started the lesson with a review of telling time. For the most part the students did very well, but they struggled with where the hour hand was placed for “a quarter til”. After this we reviewed the “What’s my rule?” tables out of the Everyday Math books.

I had students come out to go over an example on the overhead, and then they worked in their math workbooks. They seemed to struggle with subtraction so we had to do a review of that. While I was teaching there was a student, “John”, who was trying to draw attention to himself, but I just kept going with the lesson because I knew I had to get through the material before recess. When the students were working individually I went over to “John” and had him explain to me what we were doing and worked on a problem in his workbook with him. This seemed to help him become more focused. Mr. Larrousse also told me after the lesson that he liked the way I did not give “John” attention when he wanted it because it distracts the entire class and interrupts the learning process.

On Thursday we continued working in the Everyday Math books. We had the students use pieces from the Base Ten blocks to measure items around the room. This was also the first day that I saw the first grade classes switch. Mr. Larrousse’s class went to Mrs. Bucholz’s room for science, and Mrs. Bucholz’s class came to our room for social studies. It was interesting to watch how the classes were different. Mrs. Bucholz’s class was much more subdued and relaxed, waiting to be called up; whereas my class across the hall was energetic and shouting out answers. It was interesting to see that Mr. L’s teaching style didn’t really change between the two classes, though.

On Monday Angela (Miss Evans) takes over teaching math, so that will be interesting to see what I will get to do in a few semesters!

On Wednesday in math we reviewed addition facts and fact triangles.  We also read some of Roald Dahl’s Danny the Champion of the World.  This is a great opportunity to introduce lots of new vocabulary that the students wouldn’t normally be exposed to (such as poaching, etc).  There was also a whole-school assembly in the afternoon to celebrate Black History Month.  The sixth grade classes read Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech which was paired with pictures showing segregation (white-only and black-only water fountains, segregated buses) and photos of Martin Luther King, Jr. himself.  After this, the high school jazz choir performed several African American spirituals.  The students actually payed attention and were focused.  One of the students is apparently scared of the dark, because before the assembly he kept asking about whether or not the lights would be off and what would happen if they did turn the lights off.

On Thursday we tried to show that the students can use Base Ten rods to measure objects in centimeters.  They measured their pencils, art boxes, and a crayon.  We finished reading a chapter out of  Danny the Champion of the World, but the students were getting very antsy because of Valentine’s Day.  They had their party that afternoon and there were 3 jars of different candy and the students had to guess how many pieces were in each jar.  It was funny to see how they perceived the amounts.  Some students were guessing 10,000 candy hearts, when in reality there were 500.  They enjoyed their party and it was fun to see them not in “student mode” but being more of themselves.

What excites/scares me the most is that Mr. Larousse want Ashley and I (we are co-teaching) to jump right in immediately. He was going to have us teach our first lessons the very first week there, but it didn’t work out. It’s really great to have someone who is so supportive of my jumping in to help though. On Monday the class started with some oral math problems which the students had to write answers to on their white boards. This was good for me because it gave me the opportunity to walk around and help students and get to know them without distracting anyone from Mr. Larousse. On Wednesday we worked on addition facts and playing a game with addition facts. Mr. Larousse had to be partners with one of the students because there is an odd number, so I got to be “in charge” for awhile. It went well, with the only major issues being students worrying about their partners cheating, etc. We worked on a timeline of major holidays, and it was funny to see what the students considered to be holidays (“My tooth fell out” or “My mom’s birthday”). On Thursday we went over math fact triangles and played the addition facts game again. After the students left for gym I got to write in some of their journals. Mr. Larousse writes in their journals every night, responding to what they wrote, and then they write back the next day. Well, I got to respond to them, which was funny to see what the students thought was important to write about.

They all seem very enthusiastic to have me there, so I really am looking forward to seeing how the rest of the semester goes. I teach my first lesson next week, so we’ll see…