Math Lesson Reflection ~ Quadrilaterals

This lesson is the second lesson after introducing polygons and quadrilaterals the day before. We worked on learning about quadrilaterals for a week, doing different hands-on activities each day. The first day, when I introduced the topic, I combined two lesson plans from the Envisions math book. The beneficial part of these lessons for the students is that it helps them to learn the vocabulary. There are at least five students who are ELL and by discussing the vocabulary and seeing the pictures, it is great reinforcement. The students then created an anchor chart with more pictures, which we continued to add more vocabulary to for the rest of the lessons. For the rest of the quadrilateral lessons, I used a five-day lesson plan that I found online. These lessons based the instruction and goals on the Common Core Curriculum. I chose the lessons because they had many more hands-on activities for the students to learn from. Students had to cut out and sort shapes into different categories, solve riddles using their shapes, work in small groups to find more ways to sort, and the final outcome was a booklet they created with a quadrilateral riddle. They were able to share that riddle with many of their classmates and try to solve the other students riddle. Students already sit in groups of five or six. The students have been grouped as high/medium students, or medium/low students within their groups. When students need to talk with a shoulder partner, they are next to someone that is either higher or lower than them. During the making of the book, earlier finishers were able to share with others more times than the late finishers. If there was someone that still needed help, I would send them a student who had already shared a few times and have them help. All students were able to complete their booklets, because students were working together well. GEOBOARD

Student Group 1

I found that these lessons really benefited the students learning. I felt confident during the teaching of these lessons as well. I feel that as time went on during my student teaching, I felt more and more confident that my students were learning and they were staying engaged.