This week was very important (and nerve-wracking) for me, as I had to present my curriculum learning presentation to the class. Though I have basically been on stage for my entire life, and have no problem speaking (and singing) in front of large audiences, I was completely freaked out about teaching math to my peers. What if I wasn't good enough? What if the students laughed at me!? If you had asked me to sing a piece in Italian, no problem. But present math? That's another story.
Our lesson this week focused on the perimeter and area of a rectangle. Me and my partner handed out work sheets and rulers, explained to the class what perimeter and area are, and sent them on their way to measure out real-life examples of rectangles in the classroom. We devised this lesson from our "Making Math Meaningful" textbook, and related it to the Grade 4 strand of measurement. This is what our handout, and additional practice questions, looked like:
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| Retrieved from Personal Collection. |
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| Retrieved from Personal Collection. |
Surprisingly, the presentation went pretty well! Since I am pretty talkative anyways, I felt that I was able to, along with my partner, move the presentation and lesson on at a good speed. I felt confident about myself as a future math teacher, and I think that the presentation I gave really helped to put me into the right mindset! This is now how I feel about my math skills: (AKA I've got this!)
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One of the most interesting parts of the overall math lesson on measurement, were the measurement olympics. This is a great way to make sure that all of the students in your class are actively participating in the lesson AND making sure that they understand what they have just learned. This activity promotes collaboration, and really caters to visual and kinaesthetic learners, as it centred around estimation, visual cues, and moving around. The activities that we took part in were discus (throwing paper plates), javelin (throwing straws), shot put (throwing cotton balls) and big foot (measuring who had the biggest foot). Some people got really into the strategies of winning at their task, meanwhile, I just wanted to make sure that I could measure my plate-toss score correctly. Again, this is a great activity to use in the classroom because it gets the students moving and out of their seats. (DPA anyone?)
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After this week's lesson, as I mentioned before, I felt really good about myself as a math teacher. This lesson inspired me and gave me hope! I really enjoyed using the textbook by Marian Small, and found that it was easy to pick strands from the Ontario Curriculum and relate them to "Making Math Meaningful". I really enjoy going to math class (my grade 10 self is shuddering a bit at that) because I enjoy what I'm learning about! Because of these classes, I have more hope in myself that I can inspire students to enjoy class, and join in to the activities. Math doesn't have to be boring; you as a teacher just have to make sure your lessons are both engaging and enriching for the students.
Hi Erin,
ReplyDeleteThere was no need to be nervous about your math presentation, you guys did great! In regards to measurement, I really like how you noted that the "Mini-Metric Olympics" is a good collaborative activity for the visual and kinaesthetic learners. To add to your thought, this is a great game to increase the "inclusiveness" within a classroom, as all different learning levels can play this game, as long as they can activate their prior knowledge on estimating. Additionally, as you pointed out, this could be a great DPA game as well!
Have a great week!
Hi Erin,
ReplyDeleteI felt the same way too when I presented my lesson as well. Similar to yourself, it felt nerve-wracking having to present in front of our peers. But in the end, everyone is in the same boat and we are all still learning new ways to keep students engaged; its a learning process for all of us. For this week, I also really enjoyed doing the "Mini-Metric Olympics" as an activity. This would be a great collaborative tool to use with students in order to get them developing their math skills, while creating an all inclusive environment. It's a great way to get all students involved.
Great Post!!!