Geoboards Lesson Plan

The geoboards lesson plan I chose it titled 3,4,5 and More. This lesson is designed for grades 3-4. The purpose of this lesson is to have students be able to classify polygons according to the number of sides and discuss attributes of geometric shapes.

Virtual Manipulative- Fractions-Parts of A Whole gr. k-2

The virtual manipulative I experimented with this week is Fractions. This virtual manipulative is very good in introducing parts of a whole. You can divide the whole into however many pieces you would like and all you need to do is click on a piece of it and it identifies what part of a fraction it is. In addition, you can change the shape of the whole. (ex. circle, rectangle) The only thing I would do differently with this manipulative is have an option to give you examples of fractions and the student demonstrates it. Other than that I think it is a good visual manipulative on fractions.

Private Universe Workshop 6. Possibilities of Real-Life Problems

In this video students were given a problem called the Cat walk. It was very interested to see how the student’s techniques for solving this problem changed as they tried to indentify the answer. The students really worked towards a solution. What I really liked about this video is the student collaborated with each other and how they truly learned from each other. After working on this problem they were than asked to determine whether or not the CEO should bet or not. During this video you can see how the students’ thinking has developed. I think that giving students real like situations grasps the students interest. As the other videos have shown it is very important to give the students freedom and time to solve problems and instill in them the importance of knowing why an answer is correct and how they went about solving it.

Color Tiles Lesson Plan

The color tiles lesson I chose was called Fraction Bars. In this lesson,children use Color Tiles to build a fraction bar that represents a whole. They then write a set of clues to enable others to build the fraction bar. Students will be able to develop a model for fractions, use fraction notation, and work with equivalent fractions. I really like this lesson because writing and solving about fractional parts of a whole fraction bar helps children gain a concrete understanding of the meaning of fractions, fractional equivalence, and how fractional parts relate to the
whole. I believe this lesson is grade and age appropriate for grades 3-4.

Virtual Manipulatives- Point Plotter (Algebra gr.6-8)

I found point plotter to be very useful. This virtual manipulative game starts off with giving you 3 points that it wants you to plot. For instance, (6, 2),(9, -8),(5, 6) by clicking on the coordinating grid. After you plot all three you check the answer. If it is correct you can solve another problem. This helps students identify the x and y axis. It also helps understand where the negative numbers are and the positive numbers. I would use this as a follow up activity to a lesson.

Private Universe Project-Workshop 5 Building on Useful Ideas

This video really focused on two important factors Ownership and building on knowledge. These teachers’ main goals are to have these students really understand the worth of what true learning is. The students were able to think deeper and really work on solving problems using thinking rather than practice. The video also demonstrated the importance of manipulative. A teacher’s role in the classroom really is the key to getting students to thinking mathematically. The teachers in this video were asking their students why they think that is the answer and how they got it. These simple questions will open up door ways to expand how students try to solve problems. Many students were than able to build on prior knowledge and use what they learned before to help solve more complex questions.