Observation day

On Tuesday’s class we were given the opportunity to talk about our observation day that we had on Monday. We began this by getting into smaller groups with people that we were not sat with or had not previously had a similar discussion with. When we were into these groups we chatted and shared our experiences that we had with both the teachers and students in specific consideration with mathematics. The methods used and the interactions and response that the students had. After we had all a chance to share amongst the group we returned to our previous setting arrangement and be a whole class discussion. Mary began by asking students that were in grade kindergarten classrooms, then grade four etc, and some students openly made comments about mathematics in there observation day. She had also accompanied the discussions by showing us visually the textbooks for math for each individual grade. I found this discussion to be very enlightening because it gave me the chance to hear about some of the methods that different grade levels and schools responded and addressed mathematics.

My observation day took place in a grade five classroom here in St. John's. I was so delighted to get to be a spectator to the introduction of capacity. The teacher began the unit by talking about previous knowledge that they had about millimetres, centimetres and meters. Then she talked about the related units that would be using which included millilitres, litres and kiloliters and she discussed the relation between the units. She decided to do an activity as a whole class to get the students motivated and interested in the new unit. She set up a table in front of the classroom and had it lined off with a number of different shaped containers such as a water bottle and juice container. The teacher had the students write down an educated guess and arrange the containers, which were numbered from the one that would hold the most water to the least. Then she had a number of student measure the amount and then the teacher reviewed and converse over the findings.