First week "second lesson"

In the first week I did numeracy lesson which was about equal groups using manipulatives. I used plastic fruits in the first whole to explain the meaning of equal. Most of the children know the meaning of the word same however they don’t know what is the meaning of equal. I used two cartoon plates and I used different of fruits such as Grapes, oranges and an apples. Also I used the students to make the lesson more meaningful at the end of the lesson and what I did is I asked three boys to stand up on my left side and three boys on my right side and I asked them some questions. I repeated the same activity with the girls also however I let three on my left side and four on my right side to show them the difference and I asked them how we can make them equal.

Before we went to the activity corners I had to explain what they have to do especially in the focus group. The transition wasn’t too bad maybe because they were small group however what they did is asking to move to other corners and shouting to do the other activity which I asked them to do another. During the activity they had to use small flower sponges and they suppose to put it on the paints and print it on the cartoon plate that has divided already for them. They had to print three in each side to show that they understood the meaning of equality. I had to differentiate the activity however we still didn’t classify them in different ability group while I know each child level.

 I faced a problem during the activity with two low ability students which they were printing more than the number that I asked for even they had the model in front of them. What I did to solve the problem is I stopped them and I showed them what their friends did and how they did it nicely and I will stick their works on the display. What happened is I gave them another cartoon plate and they did it again as I asked and I assessed them by questioning to be sure that they got the concept. The solution worked well with the low ability student however next time I may use another strategy with them which I may do the activity and go through each steps together.