Measurement

WILD ABOUT MEASUREMENT

Learning Goal of Todays Lesson: 

- learn vocabulary for geometry and measurement

- use an organized  inquiry to complete an open question for geometry

Starting out, we took part in a math activity that we have done in a prior week called "I Have, Who Has". This game served as a minds on activity but can also be used as a form of consolidation after a lesson, introduction to content or overview/recap. 

Let the games begin.....

The game starts off with one person who has a clue such as "I have an Hexagon, who has...?" and the person who has a hexagon would respond saying what they have and ask who has their next clue. If done correctly the game includes all the students and will go throughout the classroom quickly. Associated with the game is also a lot of giggles, quick thinking and helping out a peer if they're not quick to respond. This game can, not only for math, be used for a variety of subjects. It helps students show their knowledge of the subject, think on their feet and helps with their ability to recognize and work together with their learning. Great game that I will most defiantly implement in my classroom, both during practicums and during my career.

Following this activity the class worked together to find the perimeter and area of a certain problem. Pat introduced the problem to the class:

"I can create 2 rectangular cages that use the same amount of fence but one cage is 6 square metres greater than the other. What could their side lengths be, if the sides are whole number values?"

She then told us (as advice to us as teacher candidates) that we should, during this task, encourage students to try multiple approaches and when they do to keep tack of what they have tried. This will help the students remain organized in their findings. 

After this activity we worked with our elbow partners with multiple manipulatives that helped us to to explore the many different ways we could measure. Children can, after a task such as this one recognize that there are many different ways in measuring and that everyone can start!

Although not discussed in class, I found the resource below and think it would be great and very beneficial to implement into the classroom when teaching students about measurement. I know as a student measurement always confused me or I had difficulty when trying to remember certain rules. This resource is an Area and Perimeter Board Game and is available for teachers for FREE! Can help students to become pros at their area and perimeter skills. Within my practicum classroom right now the students are learning measurement as well. This week's lesson was a great way for me to pick up more methods and tools at approaching measurement to ensure all the children will be able to understand and grasp the new information.  Click the link below to check out the Board Game Freebie!

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Area-and-Perimeter-Board-Game-FREEBIE-2868948

There is a variety of resources available to educators to help them provide the best possible resources and tools to their students. I cannot wait to implement the tools used in this weeks class into my classes. 

Take care and we will have a math congress soon!

Emily

Taste the Rainbow - Learn the Patterns

Touch my candy... I dare you

Another week complete, another math class completed and so much more to learn! This week as a class we concentrated on Patterning and Algebra. This week's 3 hour class was filled with hands on work, presentations, a lot of a - ha moments but also included some frustrations and struggles with relearning Patterning and Algebra. 

I want to begin with first concentrating on the frustrations and the struggles my group and I all experienced in this week's class. In the picture above shows sixteen slips of cards. The instructions were to group them with their "teammates" in a way. There were equations, graphs, tables and the original model. Now, reading this one might say thats easy or let me try... 4 of the cards were blank. We had to appropriately match them together with their group of 4 and it had to all make sense! After thinking we completed it correctly we were then disappointed to hear that we indeed did not complete the task correctly- they did not match. Although we show signs of frustration, myself included, Pat reminded us that it was okay to make mistakes and that through the mistakes or struggles is how we actually learn. I was able to, through this task, identify with a student that may have a harder time understanding math until they are given further guidance and or motivation to identify where I went wrong and what I needed to do to fix it. This activity quickly showed me how much truth is behind the line that Pat has said consistently along the lines of behind struggle is growth. After struggling with this task and feeling silly about it our group fixed our mistakes and were successful. In addition to being successful we were also confident that although we may not get something at first, with patience and perseverance we will get there. Lesson well learned!

This week we had a variety of students presented and included candy in their presentations...

The below picture shows one of the teacher candidate's presentation on completing the patterns. An easy task and a delicious one as well! We were also given instruction to complete our own pattern. In addition to the skittles we also had a warm-up activity with making number patterns, writing next terms, and finding the rules for each of the number patterns provided. This is just one presenter out of the few that shared their activities with us but the skittles helped to make this one a memorable and tasty one!

Making Math Meaningful - Making Patterning and Algebra Fun!

Within this week's readings there were a variety of teaching tips and ways that an educator can encourage students through their learning of patterning and algebra. I think the idea that the book gave of students being "encouraged to create patterns as soon as they have an understanding of what patterns are" (Making Math Meaningful to Canadian Students, K-8, p. 364) is crucial for a teacher candidate to take away. Once a student can understand what a pattern is and they are able to create their own and learn the different types in addition then this specific strand to them will be successful and easy to achieve. If students are encouraged to create their own they can understand what goes into a pattern and how to recognize it in others. I would, as a teacher, let students make their own and share them with their fellow classmates to complete. This would create a diversity in the patterns the students are creating and completing!

When it is all said and done..

Although this week's class was stressful because I found myself struggling, I can now look on it as a learning experience that I have gained. 

Hope to see you back here again and thanks for reading!

Emily