TMB Math Lesson Plan Reflection April 26, 2002 Math Lesson Plan Reflection I taught my math lesson in the pre-k classroom where I worked as a teacher s aide before coming to Cortland. Usually, the main activity of the day is done after their circle time. After the children hear the story they are given center time when they are allowed to have free choice. At this time the teacher and or aide works with a small group of children on the main activity. Since I know the schedule and the students well I planned my lesson according to them. I was doing the egg math lesson for the main activity. At first I started with three children at once. Based on my knowledge of the classes counting ability the teacher and I agreed to use twelve eggs. I gave them the plastic eggs, numbered to twelve and an egg carton. I decided to use macaroni noodles as counters. I gave the kids a cup of noodles. They were to look at the number written on the egg and try to identify it. If they didn t know the written numeral they could count the dots on the bottom of the egg. Then they were to put the corresponding number of macaronis in the egg, close it, and put it back in the correctly labeled place in the eggs carton. I introduced the activity to them by explaining what they were supposed to do. My original plan wasn t working too well. Out of the first three I was working with, two needed a lot of help and things seemed too hectic. I decided to make some changes. Based on the needs of this class the children needed me to watch and help. I decided to pair the children up and work with one pair at a time. I split the dozen eggs
between them. I d give one child the 1 egg, and the other the 2 egg. I kept going until I got to twelve. This seemed to work much better. Out of the eight children I worked with I think only one didn t need assistance. I tried to pair students of various abilities. This worked well because if one student had trouble the other student was often able to help. I had to help most students when we got to 11 and 12. When all of the eggs were filled we closed the carton top and I thanked them for helping me fill the eggs and praised them for their work. Then I let them help me crack the eggs open and return the macaroni to the cup for the next students who wanted to try. Lastly, I had them count to twelve. I have worked with these students for half of the year, so I pretty much knew their abilities. I knew that our pre-k students were on many different levels. I knew that some of the children would have a hard time getting to twelve. I also knew that most of them had a hard time recognizing written numerals. From past experience I knew that at least two boys would be able to recognize the written numerals. There are two sets of brothers in the class, both a year apart. (Pre-k is supposed to be for students who will be four by December 1 st, however, if our class doesn t fill up by November we accept three year olds. That is how we ended up with two sets of brothers.) I was really curious to see if the brother s abilities were similar. Pre-k is often a Childs first experience in school. They come in at all different levels depending on what they have learned at home. I found out that in both cases the abilities were not similar. I wondered if it was because of the differences of the children or because of their ages because in both situations the older brother performed better. A year can make a big difference!
The first set of brothers was Zachary and Parker. Zachary is older and one of the boys that I knew would have no trouble with the activity. Zachary was able to complete the activity with no help. He recognized all of the written numerals. Parker had quite a bit of trouble. He could count, but he couldn t recognize any written numerals. He also had trouble counting the dots on the eggs that had more than a couple of dots on them. He kept recounting the same dots. He was also unable to count out the correct number of macaroni. Patrick and Nicholas were the second set of brothers. Patrick, the older brother recognized most numbers. He counted the dots for the higher numbers and only had trouble filling egg #12. Nicholas was interesting to watch. He recognized only the first couple of numbers. He was able to count the dots, but had trouble with the macaroni. He was filling the eggs with a few noodles at a time, but only saying one number, or skipping numbers. For a second I thought, maybe he can t count that high, (I think he was at the number seven). I had him stop and count for me because I was sure he could count that high. He counted perfectly. I thought that was very interesting and something I had never noticed before. When he tried to count actual objects he got confused. Maybe he had too many factors to concentrate on (holding the egg, filling the egg, and counting macaroni). I decide to hold the egg for him and guided him in counting. He also had trouble matching the number on the egg with the number on the egg carton. There was a great range of abilities. From one who needed no assistance to one who could only count to three and couldn t do any part of the activity without one on one assistance.
I learned more than I thought I would from this lesson. It seemed easy and basic, but once I performed it I learned things I did not expect. I figured the only real problems I might run into were children not being able to count to twelve without assistance, and that they would have trouble recognizing numerals. I also wondered if the students would have trouble opening and closing the egg and if they would have difficulty holding and filling the egg at the same time. I did not expect that children who could count would have trouble counting the macaroni out. I also did not expect them to have trouble matching the numbers. I learned that just because a child has mastered counting it doesn t mean they can actually count out objects. I figured that as long as they could count they d be ok. I also did not expect children to have trouble matching the number on the egg to the number on the egg carton. I thought this would be the easiest part and that all the children could accomplish this on their own. I think that one thing the children learned was that the written numerals and the dots represented the same number. While observing the children I saw them all look at the numeral first. If they did not know it they turned the egg over to count the dots without me having to remind them to do so. I noticed that all the children who needed to referred to the dots. Most were also able to see that the macaroni represented the number as well. I think they learned that actual numbers can be represented in many ways. I think the most important thing I could know when planning a lesson is the different abilities in the class. At first, the activity was hectic and it was hard to assess because one of the first three children I worked with was a student who came into the class recently and I did not know him at all. He ended up being the one who could only
count to three. His speech was very unclear and I spent all my time intensely working with him and I couldn t really monitor the other two students. Had I known this new child I would have worked with him by himself. Another thing I would have done different was model counting the macaroni before. When counting the noodles some children took a couple noodles at a time and named them with one number. After I showed them that each noodle got it s own number they were able to do it. I realized I should have showed them that before I gave them the eggs. I think I did a pretty good job implementing the plan. I knew that kids for some reason really like playing with plastic eggs. When I first got them out they were all yelling that they wanted to play. I used the plastic eggs that have a little piece of plastic t connecting the top and bottom. These eggs don t lock as tightly as the eggs where the top and bottom are totally separated. This type of egg was definitely easier for pre-k students to handle. I also learned that many times you can t really predict what will happen when you are going to teach a lesson. Some times you might have to make changes in you lesson on the spot to accommodate new discoveries, or you can note the changes you need to make if you do the lesson again in the future. I also learned that in what I thought was one simple math lesson I was able to learn a lot about the students. I was able to see if they could simply count, count objects, do more than one task at a time, and match the dots, noodles, and the number in the egg carton to the number on the egg.