Button Button Who's Got the Button? 1-9-08

Today was the first time I have observed a math lesson in my field placement. Going into it, I was excited to observe Mrs. Johnson, see how she taught the class, and learn what unit the class was on. For me, math is my "most-feared" subject. It's funny because I always do fairly well in math in college and when I was in high school, but it definitely is not my favorite subject. I also say it is my "most-feared" subject because I have never taught math before, and it is the subject I am nervous to teach. Anyways.... Mrs. Johnson has the students walk into the room and sit down on the carpet. She tells them she has a secret number between 1 and 30. The students begin guessing and as they say their numbers Mrs. Johnson adapts her scale according to the guess for example, a student guesses 5. Mrs. Johnson would say, "My number is greater than 5, but still less than 30." Then a student would guess 19. She would say, "My number is less than 19, but greater than 5." And the students would have to adjust accordingly until someone would get it right. I really liked this short activity because it got the students attention, and it got them involved... EVERYONE wanted to guess!! And once Mrs. Johnson had the class' attention, she could introduce the activity for the day. On each student's desk there was a pile of buttons. They were asked to sort the buttons into two piles. One pile would have a "secret rule" and one pile would be the "not pile". A secret rule could be square buttons, two holes inside, round, etc., but the students were supposed to come up with their very own rule and sort accordingly. After the buttons were sorted, they were supposed to draw a representation of their two piles on a piece of paper and write down their rule. It was really interesting to me to see the variations between students and their "secret rules". Some kids came up with ideas I would have never thought of... buttons that were crooked, had ridges, string in the middle, and many more! It just shows the appreciation for a six-year-old's creativity.