One of the most difficult aspects of teaching is classroom mangement. If it's lacking or flawed, then that house of cards that is your lesson will all come a-tumbling down
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second grade algebragnikniht_tuobaSeptember 28 2005, 02:44:25 UTC
You may or may not have had it. In the last 10 years or so there's been a push to be explicit about algebraic concepts in the earliest grades.
The algebra that we did today consists of single variable equaitions, such as
4 + @ = 6
Or,
9 - @ = 5
Solve for @.
The kids use number lines and counters. They put their finger on their start point" (9) and a finger on the "end point" (5) and figure out how many steps to go between.
Then they check their work, e.g.
9 - 4 ?= 5
5 = 5 (check!)
We are calling this algebra.
Another thing we did today is study facts such as these ...
9 - 8 = 1 7 - 6 = 1 6 -5 = 1
or,
9- 9 = 0 7- 7 = 0 10 - 10 = 0
Today I asked the students to write generalizations for these fact families. In other words, how do you know when an answer will be zero? How do you know when an answer will be one?
About sixty percent of my class was able to write (or tell me) a generalization for zero ( "the numbr tak awa the sam numbr is zero").
Writing a rule for one was tougher. Only about 25% of the kids came up with a rule that had to do with subtracting the "counting-down" number or subtracting two "number-line neighbors".
To challenge those kids, I asked them to find a pattern for subtracting nines from the teens. One little boy stared at the assignment for a long time. He'd answered all the problems, but wasn't getting anywhere on finding a pattern. Finally he looked at me with a grin and asked, "Can't I just write the pattern is that I'm smart?"
Hee hee. Today was a good day, for sure.
I won't be leading or teaching whole-class much in the next math unit (the next three weeks), but my co-teacher has given me the task of keeping the early-finishers occupied with math extensions and enrichment. I'm looking forward to it. I'm also looking forward to when we cycle back to these algebraic concepts a little later in the fall.
The algebra that we did today consists of single variable equaitions, such as
4 + @ = 6
Or,
9 - @ = 5
Solve for @.
The kids use number lines and counters. They put their finger on their start point" (9) and a finger on the "end point" (5) and figure out how many steps to go between.
Then they check their work, e.g.
9 - 4 ?= 5
5 = 5 (check!)
We are calling this algebra.
Another thing we did today is study facts such as these ...
9 - 8 = 1
7 - 6 = 1
6 -5 = 1
or,
9- 9 = 0
7- 7 = 0
10 - 10 = 0
Today I asked the students to write generalizations for these fact families. In other words, how do you know when an answer will be zero? How do you know when an answer will be one?
About sixty percent of my class was able to write (or tell me) a generalization for zero ( "the numbr tak awa the sam numbr is zero").
Writing a rule for one was tougher. Only about 25% of the kids came up with a rule that had to do with subtracting the "counting-down" number or subtracting two "number-line neighbors".
To challenge those kids, I asked them to find a pattern for subtracting nines from the teens. One little boy stared at the assignment for a long time. He'd answered all the problems, but wasn't getting anywhere on finding a pattern. Finally he looked at me with a grin and asked, "Can't I just write the pattern is that I'm smart?"
Hee hee. Today was a good day, for sure.
I won't be leading or teaching whole-class much in the next math unit (the next three weeks), but my co-teacher has given me the task of keeping the early-finishers occupied with math extensions and enrichment. I'm looking forward to it. I'm also looking forward to when we cycle back to these algebraic concepts a little later in the fall.
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