Math Time Success and Grade Level Clustering

                                                               

Don't you just love when things work out right?  Odds were in my favor, (that joke is funny when you realize I was teaching a lesson on probability), but the math lesson when perfectly!  In my last classroom experience, I was lamenting a bit that the teacher hadn't left me more to teach, just busy work.  Today, the regular classroom teacher left me some great lessons, including the regular text book math lesson.

I was a little intimidated by the lesson.  The ones in this math series build upon each other, and if you aren't the one to deliver the last lesson, it takes a bit of catching up to do before you go on with it.  Luckily, the class had some related arts time which allowed me a bit of time to do this.

To briefly sum up the lesson, the students had to figure out what color and how many of each color cube were in a mystery bag with 5 cubes.  By using random selection 30 times and then recording their data, they were able to figure this out smashingly!  They performed the experiment without a hitch, recorded, and analyzed their data. I won't bore you with all the details, but it felt really good to execute an engaging and successful lesson today!

One last thing I noted during my time at this school today is that their classrooms are in clusters.  The rooms are separated by half walls and some shelves.  My first impression is that this would be nerve-wracking, but it was actually quite nice to have the other teachers there.  I have to imagine that this makes for great collaboration among the regular teachers as well!