Today we had 'No Pens Day Wednesday'. - Cam H
Today we figured out tricky questions in Math. - Hailey M.
We we were working in groups of 4 at our table. We were talking about different math problems. - Joey
We used cubes, popsicle sticks, straws, and money to solve a question. - Taylor
We read for 23 minutes for Daily 5. - Marcus
For the second time, we didn't do Number of the Day. - Dylan
Sometimes, as a teacher, you can have the whole day planned out, only to change some/all of it up on a whim, upon getting a great idea - that happened today. This morning at breakfast, while I was catching up on all the Twitter posts I had missed while I was asleep, my eye caught a tweet that mentioned 'No Pens Wednesday'. It's a movement in the UK, where teachers make a concerted effort to have the students do all of their work without writing - they do a lot of talking (which most of them are used to) and a lot of listening (which is not quite as easy for many students!) in class. It was no problem to go without pens/pencils during The Daily 5 (we are up to 23 minutes of read-to-self - I'm so impressed with the class!). However, it was a lot more challenging in Math. Initially, the students were completely unsure of how to keep track of their ideas in their own heads, as well as trying to share their thinking with their classmates. However, once we had a discussion, The students worked in their table groups to try and solve some problems they were assigned. This photo shows the manipulatives they had to choose from:
There were a couple of groups working on a money problem:
The groups weren't able to solve the money problems on their own, but once we worked together as a whole class, the students were quickly able to figure out the answer.
Another problem was: Some Tripods and Bipods few from planet Zeno. There were at least two of each of them. Tripods have 3 legs. Bipods have 2 legs. There were 23 legs altogether. How many Bipods and Tripods were there? Here is one group's solution:
The third problem was: The toy shop stocks tricycles and go-cars. The tricycles have 3 wheels, and the go-carts have 5 wheels. There were 37 wheels altogether. How many tricylces and go-carts were there? Here is one group's solution:
It was a great experience for the students and myself - as a result, I'm thinking of implimenting 'No Pens Day Wednesday' on a more frequent basis!
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