November 20th Class: Manipulatives

Today in class we were introduced to the wide variety of math manipulatives. As I think back to my school years I can’t help but wonder why we didn’t have access to these great resources. The only manipulative that I even recognized were the pattern blocks, but I can’t remember using them in the classroom. To my amazement there are lots of manipulatives we can use in the classroom, as well as lots of fun and interesting games to go along with them. The game that I found the most interesting was the one with the straws. In pairs we had to remove up to three straws each time and whoever got the last straw lost. This was a great game for students to express the different strategies they would use as they played. The other game which was lots of fun, but at times difficult, was the one where we had to make a square out of the different shapes given to us. I have to mention that our group was the first to finish!! We where also given a sheet of different animals that could be created from the shapes, I thought it was a great game.

Observation Days Completed

Yesterday was our last observation for this semester. I am sure that everyone had positive and knowledgeable experiences. For the five days that I completed I had a wide variety of activities, which were all lots of fun. I got to do many things such as read aloud to the class, be on recess duty, go on a field trip to the fluvarium, participate in reader aerobics, as well as observe great teachers at work. For the most part the math that I did get to observe was pretty much based out of the text book, but it did include activities where the students got hands-on practice with math. One thing that I did see, which was not a part of my math class when I was in elementary school, and that was math journals. The teacher explained to me that it was a result of wanting the students to be able to talk more about math and relate it to real life experiences…I thought that was pretty cool. I’m sure everyone can’t wait to get back to the classroom after Christmas and gain even more valuable information.

November 22, 2007

Today was the start of our team teaching presentations. I think this assignment is a great way for us to get hands-on practice with teaching math. I think that by having the opportunity to teach a math lesson to a group of peers is helpful because we do not necessarily have the same pressure we would have if teaching children in the classroom. By doing this assignment we are all getting great lesson plans that we could use when we get out into the classroom and we are actually getting to see the lesson in practice. The presentations that have taken place already were great and even though they were intended for primary or elementary I think we all had fun doing the activities. Great Work Everyone!

Fraction Kits

Today in class we were given a handout that helped us create fraction kits. By cutting different coloured paper into different sizes we created concrete manipulatives to learn about fractions. I have to admit it took me quite some time to figure out what we were actually doing and what size I needed to hold up when Ms. Cameron called out a fraction. I don’t exactly know why I kept doing it wrong, maybe because when I was in school the only way we seen fractions was in a written problem from the text. Anyhow I will definitely practice using the fraction kit to learn more about fractions and I intend to use this resource when I enter the classroom.

October 16th Class

In today’s class we all got a chance to talk about our experiences on our first observation day. Most of us really enjoyed our observation day and acquired a great deal of knowledge from just one day. We had a lot of stories to tell both good and bad. I thought this class was very interesting because we all got to hear everyone’s perspective and their thoughts on many things, such as classroom management, routines, diversity of students and how certain classes were taught, just to name a few. I’m sure that everyone can’t wait to get back because hands-on experience is where you gain the greatest knowledge.

October 4th Class

During class today we looked at the math journals. We all picked a journal and had time to skim through it and see if we found anything that caught our attention. I thought these journals were great, they are jammed packed with information and wonderful teaching ideas. One activity that stood out to me was a November activity were students had to calculate the size of a turkey they would need for Thanksgiving dinner. They used the general rule of how much turkey an individual would eat (I can’t remember what it is now) then figure out the size of turkey needed, also taking into account if your family wanted leftovers or if certain members would eat more or less than the general amount. The math journal provided a worksheet students could use as a guide along with a great information for the teacher to use to help you guide students. I thought this activity was pretty cool because most parents don’t know what size a turkey they need to feed all of their family and it would be a great feeling for students to be able to teach their parents how to correctly calculate the right size turkey. (They would be talking about how they came up with the answer all through dinner!)

October 2nd Class

During this class we were placed in groups, given a big piece of white paper and A LOT of sand. I couldn’t believe it when Mary said we had to try and count the grains of sand. I thought to myself..she must be mad…we will be here forever. Anyway, as crazy as I thought the activity was I found myself trying to find ways to count the sand. First we all decided to spread the sand out evenly, then place it into equal sections but we soon found out it was way to difficult to try and count itsy bitsy grains of sand in what seemed to be a small area. So then we decided we would dip our finger into the sand, count the sand grains that stuck on our finger and then see how many ‘finger’ amounts were in the pile. To my amazement we actually came up with an estimate number for the number of sand grains we had. After the whole class all had a discussion about our ways of counting the sand…we all had lots of different ideas and had tons of fun trying to count the sand grains. I think this would be a great activity for students because it a fun, usual, and hands-on way of teaching and learning math.