Spring break is over, let the balancing act begin!

Well spring break is over and I went back to work this week. I had such a great spring break spending time with my little man. We went to the zoo for the first time and to Stone Mountain to ride the train for the first time. Now whenever I say we are going to the park, he says, "Park with train!" Luckily I now have a member pass so we can go as much as we want this summer (Thanks, Mom!). Here are some quick pics from our spring break.

Although it is always difficult coming back from any break because I miss my little man to pieces, we have had a very exciting week in our class. The lesson I was most excited about was a lesson I created for my gifted endorsement class (which I LOVE!). I based the lesson the inductive learning strategy in the book The Strategic Teacher. If you have not read this book...YOU MUST! It is AMAZING! We had to turn in our copy today and I must admit I was sad. I will be buying myself a copy this summer. 

Anyway...back to the lesson. We are working on understanding the equal symbol and balanced equations. Yes, you read that correctly. Balanced equations.  Can you believe it?! I began the lesson with a quick review of the equal symbol. I had the students do a think-pair-share and discuss what they knew about the symbol. Here is the quick anchor chart I made of their responses. 

 ** We did discuss how it does not always come before the sum. Ex. 7 = 6+1.

 

After the students discussed the equal sign, I gave them an envelope that had numerous equations cut up and placed inside. The students were instructed to work with their group and sort the equations. They were given no other instruction that to see what they notice and sort. I then walked around and helped foster discussion through questioning. After they sorted they had to give title to their groups.

A group explaining their reasoning. They sorted into which equations were balanced (true) and which were unbalanced (not true). 

This group struggled a little bit. They sorted in a way I did not expect. They sorted by those that had only addition, those that had only subtraction, and those that had both addition and subtraction. I had to question a little bit more to gear their thinking toward the equal sign and what it meant. 

Another group made 3 groups: true, not true, and turn around. As you can see, they placed 12-1 = 1-12 as a turn around. Most of the class labeled this as true. We had quite the debate about whether or not this was true. When I asked them to prove it, they realized it was in fact false. 

Here are pictures of them using the balance to prove their groupings. 

After proving their groupings, the students completed their critical thinking/synthesis activity. I chose to do a 2-5-8. This particular one was created by a dear friend of mine. They are challenging to make and require a lot of thought, but it is so worth it! It is a great way to differentiate instruction. I highly recommend trying it every now and then. The 2's are the easier problems, 5's are average, and 8's are challenging. Typically, you have the students do activities until they get a sum of 10. Therefore, they could do an 8 and 2, 5 and 5, or five 2's (if you could come up with that many). However, since it was their first time completing one, I just let them pick two activities. The students really enjoyed having a choice and almost all of them chose the correct activity for their ability level. 

I am learning to teach to the high. I think many of us teach to the middle of our class and then meet our students' needs through small group instruction. However, I feel like teaching to the high encourages the others to reach for the stars. I feel as though students meet your expectations for them. If you don't expect much, you won't get much. That being said, I feel you also must not go too high above their level or you will completely lose them and they will be discouraged. Teaching is definitely a balancing act itself. Every student is different. Each child comes with different experiences, learning style, passion, etc. However, no matter what class make-up you have (ESOL, SPED, regular ed., or gifted) this lesson will work in your class.