Math games

I now can say I have one week of student teaching officially under my belt and the experience is already amazing. Though last week had its moments, such as when I was glad I got that F on a sixth grade science test so I could tell my students about it, the first day of week two has already been more eventful.

The kids spent last week getting used to me hanging around in the back of the room or wandering though the room. But I think the fact that I was there almost every single day helped them warm up quite a bit so it was good that my coop and I decided I could try leading the problem of the day for math.

Let me just say that teaching is a lot better than sitting in the back of the room.

The problem of the day only took about fifteen minutes of our time, and that was a bit of a stretch, I felt. We still had another ten to go before MAP testing and my coop stepped out to talk to another teacher so what to do? Somehow, a math game that my fourth grade teacher used to do with us popped into my head. I called on four kids to give me numbers between 1-10. Between the last two I wrote and equal sign and then I told the kids to take out their white boards and figure out how to use the four operations to make the equation true.

Now, I remember liking this brain pop when I was a student but I always thought that I was one of the odd ones out. Maybe I thought wrong though, if this class is any indication. It was a warm fuzzy feeling to see all of those heads bent over, furiously writing and erasing numbers and signs. And when I called on kids to give their answers, hands spiked up all over the room. I called on four kids--after saying this would be the last one to each.

Fourth graders can do all of this amazing thinking and I love it. They have a lot more homework than kindergarten did, which will take some getting used to, but I'd take fun math games over no homework any day.