Intern Posting 6

This week was my second week of teaching math in the classroom. Although the first week went pretty well, this week started off roughly. I began this week by teaching the kindergartners how to compare two or more patterns. The students have done an excellent job with shape and color patterns so far but when I introduced comparing the two, the students had great difficulty.

The purpose of my lesson was to show how a color pattern such as red, blue, red, blue could be represented by a shape pattern such as square, circle, square, circle. Both patterns have two repeating attributes and can therefore represent one another; red equals square and blue equals circle. Before I even began this lesson I knew it was going to be difficult to teach because I had a difficult time understanding the teacher's manual. I reviewed the on-line math with the students and also did a manipulative activity, but the students still were not catching on.

I am still wondering what I could change about this lesson to benefit the students more. I know that I found myself explaining the information and talking with the students more than I usually do during lessons. I felt that the students weren't understanding so I was trying to explain, but I wish I would have explained the lesson more visually or with a hands-on approach. A few students did understand by the time we reached the assessment portion of the lesson, but the majority did not. I definitely want to practice this skill more with different approaches in order to determine what works best for the students.