April.13, 07: Teaching Block Day 4

It's Pajamas' Day! I wore my pajamas to school for school spirit. I always think it's fun to dress up on Halloween, to make a wacky hair on Wacky Hair Day, to wear pajamas on Pajamas' Day. It helps get the students into the school spirit, and they feel very excited when their teachers are having fun too!

Today, I read a book called "When Will it Be Spring?" to the students. We used the book as a guide to fill in our Spring mind map. We talked and discussed about what we see, hear, touch and smell in Spring. The students are all enthusiastic, because I believe that looking at the seasonal changes is a very natural interest for children. Everything fascinates them, and seeing how the snow melts and flowers bloom can be very exciting. It is very important to let them talk about their experiences and observations, because other students who are listening would get to hear about different people's experience and knowledge of Spring. They become engaged in the conversations, which can be really productive.

I asked the class to think about some of the things about Spring that they don't quite understand. For example, why does it rain so much in Spring? When animals come out from hibernation, are they really hungry? I got them to think about their inquiries, and then I taught them to write a letter to Spring. Two days ago, they wrote a letter to say goodbye to Winter, and now they are writing a letter to say hello to Spring and ask questions about it. They had fun coming up with the questions! This information will also help me because I can take a look at their questions and try to answer them in following classes. It is important to know what students want to know.

In Math, I taught a lesson on the relationship between pennies and nickels. First, I read the "Coins" poem with them to review the values of pennies and nickels. Then I asked them how would they pay for a washroom pass, which is 5 cents. So we started talking about how 5 pennies is the same value as a nickel, because both equal to 5 cents. So they can either give me 5 pennies or a nickel when they need to get a washroom pass. Since they enjoy paying for the passes, this gets them to think about what I am teaching them, because they don't always have 5 pennies in their buckets. When they don't, they'd have to pay me in other ways.

Then we did some selling and buying. I have a little tray with bookmarks and origamis in 4 sections, with 4 different prices. I asked for people who wants to buy something, and then walk the students through how to make a purchase. They really enjoyed doing that! Every single hand went up when I asked who wants to buy something.

After that, I gave each of them a gamesheet and a die to play the pennies and nickels trading game. Through the game, they were practicing how to exchange a nickel with 5 pennies. I think that it is useful to let the students play with the money, or else they'll get bored and Math and money are not fun anymore. Being boring is the last thing that we want to do!