Regarding Pre-Algebra, I came in halfway through Chapter 7 which had to deal with equations and inequalities. Luckily the students have already had a thorough background in solving equations so when I taught solving inequalities, it was almost a walk in the park for them (but remember! when you multiply or divide by a negative number, flip the sign!). Because the students were familiar with the concept, I was able to spend more time on creating fun activities or word problems for them to solve--which most of the time ended up dealing with traveling. For example, one day we created a budget to go to Adventureland; another day we "traveled" through space to see how much we weighed on different planets (i.e. I weigh over 3000 pounds on the sun and under 20 pounds on the moon); and we also pretended to backpack across Europe. I really liked creating all of these examples because I felt it was a good way for me to teach math and for the students to get to know me--like how I have more or less backpacked around Europe and how my dad and I go to Adventureland every summer. I ended the chapter with playing a review game I did in the regular math classes called Zap! They also really enjoyed the competitiveness of the game while reviewing the concepts. As I looked over their tests, their scores fell in line with how they normally score.
These next weeks, we start Chapter 8! All the kids have been groaning about this chapter because it is all about graphing and learning about linear equations. It will be a tough topic to learn and teach but I'm really excited for many of the lessons because this gives me a good opportunity to try different activities. I look forward to sharing them on here!
Considering regular 7th grade math, from the last post to this one, I played two different review games. I started out one day with Jeopardy and the second day was Zap! Originally, I had imagined that we would play Jeopardy both days but I found it was hard to keep kids engaged when it seemed in all three classes, one team would take the game away. While that is good for that row to succeed, I also wanted to create more competition and engagement--that is when Zap! was formed. The explanation of this game is seen in a later post. After these two review days, I was definitely anxious for the kids' testing because this was the first time I was ever actively involved in a classes learning. And those kids...they came out on top for themselves (and for me)! The average score was a B and in one class the mode class was an A+! Miss Mobius said we couldn't have asked for better results. I am so proud of my kids.
After the test, I also had the students write a review of how I was doing. Overall the students really liked the games I was playing and how I was able to get math down to their levels. One thing I needed to work on was my speed of teaching. They said sometimes I would talk too fast or get off topic for a split second and then they would be lost. Excitement sometimes gets the best of me. But with both of those comments in mind, I'll keep the games coming and try to slow down my presentation as to continually help each student succeed.
Now in that class we have moved onto solving equations. I have brought back Whack-a-Mole which many students enjoy and I am trying to find new games to play. I've already created on for tomorrow's class so I hope it goes well! While these first couple of lessons have been fairly simple for most students, this next part of the chapter is going to prove itself more difficult. Oh! One of our days too was a word problem galore day, so in one of the story problems from the book I changed it to deal with Dory and then I found this picture online so it became the motto for the day as I sang it after each problem. Surprisingly enough, 1st hour enjoyed it the most.
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