More Teaching Fun
Wednesday, February 6th, 2008 | Sara the Teacher
I taught “proportional reasoning” yesterday. The concept that if “9 pencils cost $1.89, how much do 12 pencils cost?” Also, if “6 pencils cost $2.20, how many pencils can be bought for $1.10?” Not at all exciting information, and with today’s technology…who really uses such methods? I mean, I am trying to build my students’ number sense and ability to understand and manipulate numbers (and even do some of it mentally), but I’ve always dreaded the “proportional reasoning” days. After discussing the 99 cents store, and Von’s weekly “10 for $10 deals,” how much more real life can I get (I don’t really consider buying 12 pencils for $2.52, “real life”)?
Since I wasn’t real excited about my kids sitting around yesterday completing problems on worksheets, I created a game out of it. I made up “The Mystery Bag Game.” How it worked was like this… The students took one proportional reasoning problem from the worksheet and worked as a team of 4 to solve it. They had to work together, show their work on an overhead transparency, and explain their method to the class. The team who did the most outstanding job got whatever was in the “mystery bag.” It was a long shot, but I thought it was a little more intriguing than completing math problems all period. And, there was the added bonus of the students teaching each other.
It worked!
My students loved it! They were so excited about the chance at the mystery bag, I got more work out of them than I have in weeks! The best part…I sat at a desk at the back of the room and let them do the teaching. It was amazing! First period did so well, I gave away all of the snickerdoodles I made the night before for the “mystery bag.” I had to scrounge around my classroom for prizes for my other classes (which turned out to be a few snickers bars and some rolls of lifesavers).
I made another batch of cookies last night. We’ll see how my classes today enjoy the game. Everyday is a new adventure!
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