Monday's Math was a session filled with fun manipulatives. The first was constructing frogs out of cotton balls and making them hop by launching them off of paperclips. From this lesson, I saw again the value of having the kids compile their own data in a fun way. We all had a blast making our frogs jump and recording the distance.
For me it was fun playing with the tangrams until we had to construct the giraffe. This further reinforced for me that I am not a spatial visualizer (Good thing I never went into the field of ultrasound tech like I had once thought about!) This assignment brought up my frustration level, but also made me realize that most people have strengths and weaknesses when it comes to math.
My question is: how far into frustration do you let a student struggle? Should the group members jump in to help, or should a student have to try and work it out on their own?
The applications I see for my class are making math fun! Students won't even realize they are learning because they are so absorbed in a fun activity. Also, I want students to see their math strengths. Even if they think they aren't good at math, there should be an area that they feel confident in.
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