November 17th, 2023

Today was my first 3rd grade lesson at Bear Creek Elementary with Ms. Beach's students. I'm not going to lie, I was a little nervous because, even though its only a one year age difference, it was a new age group of students and I didn't really know what to expect. They were at the multiplying and diving point in their curriculum, which was my personal favorite when I was in 3rd grade. 

I started with a simple review lesson on the board to get their brains going. I used different ways to describe the proccesses of mulitplication on division. Things like pictures and hand motions were things that helped me learn it when I was there age so I called upon a few of those to help me out.

We then jumped right into the lesson. I created a story about a boy named Jamie who is gathering materials to create a gift basket for his favorite teachers and the amount of materials he needs depends on the answer to some mulitplication and division problems. So I split the students into 3 groups and treated it almost like a relay race. I used google slides to create the story and each problem was on each slide. Going through each slide, the students were having such a fun time. I loved seeing them work together and figure out these problems. I used things like fake vines, fake apples, fake lemons, etc.. But at the end I got real bundles of Ferrero Rocher to put in the baskets. 

Once the students finished all the problems and got all the materials, I had them decide as a group, who they were going to give their basket to. After that, I had them make cards with a math related compliments to attach to the baskets. One of the cards said, "Out of all the teachers, you #1!" Which I thought was absolutely adorable.

I had so much fun with this lesson! The students worked so well together and it was a great way for them to work on some math right before Thanksgiving break.  :)