September 20th, 2024

Alrighty, so today I was back at Silver Lake Elementary with Mrs. Vietti's 2nd graders. I taught her afternoon class this time and she only had about 13 kiddos in that class so I was excite to work with a smaller class and a more intimate environment. Today they were working on place value, specifically with 4 digit numbers. I had a big block of time to work with so I had tons of stuff planned for them. 

First, I did a little warm-up on the board, seeing where their heads were at and guage how well they knew this concept. I then broke out my fun little board game I made for them. I created a game board for them and some flashcards. The flashcards had different version of place value like expanded form, standard form, and pictoral form. The way it worked was I split the deck so each pair had a good amount of cards. Then on their turn, one person draws a card and answers the question asked. If they get it right, they spin the spinner and move those amount of spaces. If they get it wrong, they stay where they're at. The students were having a great time with this. I loved seeing their competitive spirits come alive. I also loved seeing them help each other. If one student was stuck, their partner would give them a little push. It was so sweet.

We then moved on to the second half of my lesson. I created some pictoral questions that said what the number was but it had a blank in it. The goal was to have the student roll the die and fill in the blank with thier number. Next, they would draw what they rolled on the sheet and compare it with the conditions sheet I made. The conditions sheet helps them build the paper bag puppet they create with these problems. The students loved this activity as well. Some needed a little more help with the questions than others and I had to go in full teacher mode, which was a great experience for me. The students were so cute with describing the traits their puppet had. One student said, "My puppet has so many triangles, it looks like a Christmas tree!" 

Once they were all finished with their puppets, I had them do a show-and-tell with their classmates and really explain why they got the traits they got. I loved seeing them use their math language and show off their puppets. It was so good to be back at SLE and I can't wait to come back!