She had the class broken into centers. I worked at a table with students who each had a bag of cheerios and a number card. They were to read the number on their card and count out that number of cherios. We did this several times and I consciously gave each student single and double digit numbers. After about 7 minutes of this I could sense the children knew what they were doing and were loosing interest. I leaned over into a bucket near me to grab a white board. We started writing the numbers and talking about the different properties (i.e. an 8 is like an s that's closed...Lydia). I also had them do some addition and subtraction, asking them questions such as "if you have 7 cheerios and you want 10, how many more do you need?" Most were able to do this and were happily surprised when I told them "do you know that right now your doing addition and subtraction! " I was also reminded that we need to set high standards for our students and give them the encouragement and scaffolding to think beyond what they think they can. Marisa's lesson ended early and she came up with an activity using a pocket chart and numbers.
A little boy in one of my groups is an ESL student. It was clearly visible that his language was acting as a barrier in learning his numbers. Also, rather than knowing them from recognition, he would look at the number line and count up from one. I tried to work with him more closely and I also had his classmates help him. When he didn't know a number, I would ask the 3-4 other students, what number is this? Then I would turn to Andres and ask him what number is this, and he would repeat what his friends just said. When I first read this technique in Lemov, I thought that it would make a student feel insecure and "called out", but that was not the case. I kept the pace of doing this moving quickly which I also think helped. I think its important to teach students that their classmates can also act as teachers and support when they have confusion.
Great observations Allison. I think it is a great idea to challenge the students that are "bored" with a lesson. I have noticed a lot of the students that are off task are the brightest and this is probably because they are not being challenged. It sounds like you did a great job at keeping everyone on task and at their challenge level. A lot of teachers have us write our lesson plans to include a section "If too difficult" and "If too easy". It is great to have something already prepared for these situations, but you also have come up with ideas during the lesson too!
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