Day 131 Vocabulary Practice

6th Grade Math Standards: Everything

The Learning Objective: Use collaboration to identify math vocabulary

Assessment: I sat with a group of three students and we went through about ninety vocabulary words that could only be seen by one person in the group by giving each other definitions, opposites, and examples. We completed the entire list in about thirty minutes. The rest of the class also worked, but they had groups of four and were very engaged just by looking around the room so I did not bother to get up at the risk of slowing down the group of three.

Agenda:

1. MCAS Test
2. Vocabulary review game

Glass-Half Full: Historically we do not like to have students taking normal classes and doing the normal routine after taking the state test. They are cooked and as a teacher I feel guilty asking them for more hard work when they gave so much in the morning. In the past we have done movies or played Scattegories. Today I tried the vocabulary review and it was very well received. There are many positives from a curriculum and cooperation standpoint not to mention that students do not need to write anything so it's a nice change up for students that struggle with calculation.

We identified five vocabulary words that the students struggle with describing (all of them come from the equations and expressions strand): distributive property, linear function, dependent variable, coefficient, and like terms.

Regrets: The rules of the vocabulary review game need to be emphasized from the start. I was introducing them as I was playing with my group because I was catching my group do some things wrong. Here are those rules:

1. Cover the word with your hand so the rest of the group cannot see it. 
2. Give math clues only (do not say it starts with a certain letter)
3. You cannot say a word within the definition when giving clues. For instance, if the word is prime number, you cannot say it's the opposite of a composite number because that is using the word number. 
4. After one minute, pass the bag of words.
5. If you are holding the word in your hand at the end of one minute, it goes back in the bag because nobody guessed it in time. 
6. If it's a word you do not know, you have to eat it for the full one minute. That way it becomes more of a priority for the whole group to talk about its meaning and the context it will be used in math. 

Link of the Day: Another story about how Finlind makes America look bad. This one comes from the LA Times. I love how in this one a child describes a recess experience. They sent us into the woods with a compass and a map and told us to find our way out. Would that fly in the U.S.?