Whack-a-Mole and Snow!

This past week has been something else. It is crazy to think I've only been there for 3 weeks because I feel like I have developed so much in the past 2 weeks in learning how to develop and teach a lesson and how to direct and relate to the students. Because I am starting to get the hang of things, I tried to do different types of review and practice for them where it would still keep the same structure while still hopefully adding a bit of excitement. For example, E. Middle School runs a Gradual Release model for their lessons which looks like I do it (Teacher), We do it, You (all) do it, and then You (independently) do it. It is a method of which I have heard of but most of the time at Central we practiced the We, we, we mode so to change my language has taken some getting used to and I still slip up at times but that is how the notes go. In generally I do an example and then they try an example in their notes. After that I may do their example on the board according to their directions or I will send someone up to the board who has the right answer or close to the right answer because then other students can catch mistakes. As of right now, the best way to help the students learn the topics (different operations on expressions) a lot of practice is best. This is where I get to be creative and try new things. 

For example, 

On Monday I created an activity for them to do in partners where they had to use the distributive property and adding linear expressions to find the perimeter of their desk. I started it off by having them make a prediction on the desk's perimeter so that whoever was closest at the end would win a piece of candy. I know bribing isn't always good, but sometimes it is nice to add in that element. I think the students enjoyed the activity but unfortunately the activity was rushed and so not everyone got as far as I would have hoped. 



On Tuesday and Thursday, I taught the students subtracting linear expressions. I started off on Tuesday with an example about the Super Bowl and ended up making a big fool of myself one of the hours because they found out quickly I don't follow football all that well. But oh, well! After I taught them the lesson, I pulled up a game I found for SmartBoards called Whack-A-Mole. And it was similar to the games you play at ChuckieCheeses but this time once you "whacked" (aka "lightly hit") a mole, a different problem popped up for them to try. I let the students pick the problems if they answered one up there and I liked that it added an element of surprise and choice for the students. 

Oh yeah! Wednesday. Here is what Wednesday morning looked like =)

I would just like to say, I actually did get a lot done that way in the regards to lesson planning to hopefully alleviate stress and planning for the next days to come.

Friday I reviewed with them the of how to find the greatest common factor of two different numbers. Luckily they had already learned this previous in the year but this time we added in different variables because it leads into Monday's lesson on Factoring linear expressions. Once again to add an element of surprise and choice for the students I put different numbers in a cup and had students draw them out so that the class had to find the GCF of those two numbers. I am really glad I didn't really use technology today because it was nice and fun to walk around with the students and to show we could have fun without it.

Now for next week! On Tuesday I start FULLTIME. PreAlgebra will be halfway through their chapter so it sounds like a good place for me to jump in so that I can learn the rhythm and flow of their classroom before trying some new things in Chapter 8. Luckily, Math 7 will be predominantly reviewing for the test and then taking a test so I have time right now to focus on PreAlgebra. Wish me luck!