April.12, 07: Teaching Block Day 3

Today we finished up our Winter letter lesson. I taught them how to use the writing checklist to self-edit their writing. So from now on, when they finished any writing, they would check it with their checklist before raising their hands.

In the afternoon, we played Money Bingo. I made 20 different Bingo sheets, with the values of the coins. Above each column is a letter -- M, O, N, E or Y. I would call out, for example, "penny in the M column", then the students would see if they have any "1c" in the M column. If they do, they'd put a penny (coin manipulative) on that specific box. The game continues until someone fills in a whole row, column, or diagonal line.

As a modification for the students who might be confused, I held up a big card with the picture of the coin as I called out the coin name. For example, when I called out "a dime in the O column", I'd hold up a picture of the dime, so the students who weren't sure how much is a dime would have the reference to help them.

The class enjoyed the game, but I think that they got over-excited, and I wasn't able to calm them down. I still need to work on classroom management in terms of controlling the noise level. I understand that they were trying to figure out what to put on their Bingo sheet and that the noise level expressed their enthusiasm, but they should not go too overboard.