math0507-051112



5/7/12 - Coin manipulative kept students engaged and absorbed. They couldn't wait to get their hands on it. - In the beginning, students came up with the obvious combinations like three quarters make 75 cents. - However, a few students came up with a different combination like seven dimes and one nickel to make 75 cents. Then I challenged students to use quarters in their combinations. Finally, students were able to come up with several different combination of coins using quarters, dimes, nickels, and pennies.

5/8/12 - The Bingo game was too challenging! Counting mixed currency is a hard concept and the game required multiple steps just to play. First, students had to count currency in each box until they could find the called amount/value. I tried to have the students count and write the value on the box before the game but this seemed like it would take forever so I just started the game. - Once we started playing, they started getting it and found the values more quickly. However, I could see that it was too hard for some students. From some point on, they didn't even try. Therefore, I got those students to partner up with another classmate to play partner Bingo. This allowed these students to try and participate.

5/9/12 - Students did very well with money word problems. - They used those strategies from the addition and subtraction unit to solve them. - There were one or two questions they seemed to get tricked on. These problems sound like subtraction problems but they are actually addition problems.

5/10/12 - I practiced drawing coins and solving word problems with my group. We spent more time drawing coins on the whiteboard. - I tried to get students to come up with challenging combinations rather than obvious one. For example, I gave credit to those that were able to draw a quarter, two dimes, and a nickel to make 50 cents rather than drawing two quarters. This way, students were challenging themselves to come up with various combination of coins to make a certain value.