Lesson #3 & #4
I decided to share my two lessons together, because they were the same lesson except lesson #4 just built upon what was learned during #3. These lessons were both a blast, and I would definitely say these are lessons that I plan to implement in my future classrooms for any grade level. This is a dance lesson I adapted from Jana Shumways multiplication and division dance lesson.
My lesson plan was as follows:
Addition Lesson #3
Core Standard:
Standard 1.OA.1 Use addition and subtraction within 20 to solve word problems involving situations of adding to, taking from, putting together, taking apart, and comparing, with unknowns in all positions. For example, use objects, drawings, and equations with a symbol for the unknown number to represent the problem.
Introduction Book: Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus by Mo Willems
(I read a book at the beginning, because the children are just getting in from recess. This calms them down and gets them ready for our lesson.
Introduction Game: After reading to them, and to get the children warmed up on math, I had them still sitting down on the reading rug in criss-cross position. Today the lesson surrounded addition problems from 0-5, so this game focused on math equations 0-5. So for example, 1+1, 2+2, 0+5, etc. When I would call out an equation the children all together slap their legs and yell out the answer. They do it all together, and if their not all together then I say something like "what?!" and they all yell out the correct answer again. It's a pretty quick paced game, but it's a lot of fun and the children really respond well to it. I wish I had a video of the children doing it, so that you could see the focus of 22 1st graders.
Dance the Following:
After the intro game, we dove into learning the dance moves for each of the numbers. I taught the students the dance moves for 0-5 numbers. Repeat each number until they start to memorize what movement goes with what number. Make sure to print out the visuals and have them taped high up on the board for the children to see and be reminded.
0. fall down alone
1. dance move alone
2. elbow swing with one partner
3. ring around the rosy
4. right or left hand texas star with 4 people
5. huddle with 5 people
6. 6 people in a row hold their hands up high and can-can style kicking of legs
7. Hold hands and walk in a line with 7 people
8. Texas star with 8 people
9. Make a train by holding the shoulders of the person in front of you with 9 people
10. Hold hands in a circle and walk around with 10 people.
After learning and practicing the numbers, then we start getting into addition problems. I put on some fun music, and wearing the microphone I would yell a math problem to the children. For example, I would yell out 3+1. The children would yell "4!" Then they would all start forming groups of four and doing the dance move, which for four it was making a star. Once everyone had formed groups and were doing the move right, call out the next equation.
Equipment:
Visuals
Music:
I feel better when I’m dancing – Megan Trainor
Try Everything – Shakira
Titanium
Thoughts/Reflections:
In general, I really loved this lesson. The children responded extremely well to the book, introduction game, and to the lesson. The lesson was very upbeat, and the students were engaged and enjoying themselves. It was a fun way to practice math problems and can be modified for different ages, such as addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. In fact, it was originally written for multiplication and division, and I modified it into addition. The idea was it helps with division, because children get to actually physically see groups and remainders. But anyways, I thought it went well for addition. The only suggestion I would make would be to make sure there is another helper. There was myself, Ms. Merris, and another practicum student there to help assist the children in finding groups. This made it run a lot smoother with less chaos.
Lesson #4
Now for lesson 4 we did the same lesson, except we just added the rest of the numbers and dance moves 6-10. I kept the same format of book (This is Not my Hat) , introductory game (same game, but with the higher numbers to 10 involved), and then same lesson but with all of the numbers 0-10.
We reviewed the numbers and dance moves from the last class, and then we added 6-10 as well. Now this created a little more chaos, because now our groups were a lot larger and the dance moves were a little harder. It's hard to create the chaos that comes from kids trying to find a group of 9, but my suggestion would be to create easier dance moves. For example, number 8 is a texas star that also has people linked to the four people making the star. It just really never quite turned out right for the first graders. So I would suggest creating 1st grader friendly moves when it comes to the bigger numbers, because that was something that made the lesson slow down due to chaos. Other than that though, the children still really enjoyed the lesson, and we had a lot of fun!
