It really feels like the Fast Lane

It is midnight of our last night of the debate. This class, my own class of 28, and my kids's activities have had me running so much that I think I passed myself! I am truly looking forward to sleeping in tomorrow, enjoying the weekend with my girls, and then resting during Christmas break. I wish everyone a MERRY CHRISTMAS and a wonderful New Year!

It was JUST as expected :)

This blog is in follow up to Amy's request to know how the Math lesson turned out. My gut instinct in taking the time for the kids to build "boxes" with the cubes by giving them various dimensions paid off. We began taking those boxes we made and then drew "plans" on centimeter grid paper. After practicing that for awhile the students were then able to do this on their own with a given set of dimensions. WOW. This went MUCH more smoothly than in years past. I think I could re-write our math book. Or at LEAST give them some tips that actually work in the classroom!!!!
Not really, but it was a very proud teaching moment.

Math Stuff...

It was a WONDERFUL teaching day. I've gone a little away from our Math Investigations program and tweaked it to fit my students needs more. Introducing Volume: We are supposed to spend 5 minutes with interlocking cubes and building different sized "boxes". Instead we spent a great DEAL of time doing this so the kids could really SEE that Volume is length x width x height. I think this way will have them prepared tomorrow when we have to build boxes based on measurements using centimeter paper. Crossing fingers...

Mission Complete

My students FINALLY presented their final project to our Native American Unit. We have used websites to research and made power point presentations to share with the class what they learned about their chosen tribe. My students also had a family project to do. They created a shelter that their tribe used, using things found in nature to build it and also had to incorporate artifacts we would find. The families LOVED this project.

The only down side to this is that it took MUCH longer to get through this project than it has in the past because I incorporated the Powerpoints. We just have such a limited access to technology it's difficult to research much less put a powerpoint together.

Overall, I will use this again next year!