Today we focused on using word problems to solve two-question problems. For example, Tracy has 21 potatoes in one basket. She has 18 potatoes in another basket. How many potatoes does she have in all? Then, Tracy uses 22 of the potatoes. Now how many potatoes are there?
Because of the difficulty of the lesson I worked through each of the problems at the front of the class while the students helped guide me through the problems. I made sure to put the responsibility of actually solving the problem on the student by calling random students to solve parts of each problem. The difficulty did not come from students who were not paying attention (although, like I stated earlier, the students were very talkative) but more from the difficulty of the lesson. However, we pushed through and the majority of the students understood how to complete the work.
Lunch (In other words "Teacher's Rest Time")
During lunch I was brainstorming how I could use the fact that the students were very talkative today as an academic advantage. I knew that for the writing activity I had wanted the students to create their own rules as if they were the principal of the school...so I just adjusted my lesson to fit the needs of the students today. I decided to move the desks around from rows to groups and created five different table groups. I let the students know before going into the classroom that I had moved around the seating and that I wanted them to find their desk and clear everything off because we had a new assignment.
After the students came in and the noise settled I had everyone look around at their table group and explained to them that these people, THESE SILLY, CRAAAAZY PEOPLE, were their partners in the next activity. Then I had them all close their eyes. This is a neat little trick that might not work for all classes, but for now works like a charm in my class. I told them to imagine that they had their own school and that they got to choose their very own rules. I started giving examples of silly things: No homework, only ice cream for lunch, video games everyday, riding dragons to school, etc. The kids all seemed to love the examples and they started getting very excited about the activity.
Then I asked my classroom helper ( I choose a new one everyday) to help pass out the lined paper while I read the following poem:
I reminded the students that they could pick any rule that they wanted but they needed to work together as a team to come up with their rules. Yea for talking! I gave them about 7 minutes to complete this activity and walked around so I could peek at some of their answers.
After everyone had finished I had everyone stand up and push in their chairs and I dismissed them to a certain area of the room. I went around to each group and read the 5 rules from each new "school". I told the students that they were going to need to decide on a school that they wanted to attend. I had them all turn around and tapped each student on the shoulder so they could quietly choose their favorite school.** I did tell them that they were not allowed to choose their own school and that helped balance the selections.
Once everyone had settled at a table group I had the students who chose that school work together to pick, what they thought was, the best rule and indicate it by circling the rule. I had all students return back to their normal seats and fresh paper was passed out so we could compile all the best rules onto our "final draft". I had one student from each group be the spokesperson and they told me what rule had been selected. Our final draft makes for one amazing new school.
Favorite Moment of the Day:
I had a table group that was half boys and half girls decided that one of their rules was that they didn't want a member of the opposite sex in their school. So we had "THE BIG SPLIT" which, of course, I made a huge deal. The kids thought it was great. The all boys school decided that everyone would play laser tag all of the time. I can't argue with that, sounds great!
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