Math Observation

Last week at my clinical placement I saw a really cool math lesson about even and odd numbers taken from the Everyday Math Curriculum. This was the first lesson in which even and odd numbers were being introduced to the first grade students. The lesson first began students counting by twos. The teacher asked the students if they noticed any patterns as they counted by twos. A few students noticed that they skipped one number every time they counted by two's. The teacher then asked two students to come to the front of the room. She told the two volunteer students to face each other and hold hands. She then explained to the students that the two volunteers were a pair. She then put up a T-Chart using the computer projector. One half of the the T-chart was labeled "All in Pairs" and the other half was labeled "Not All in Pairs." She recorded the number 2 in the "All in Pairs". She then asked another student to join the two students in front of the room. She had the third student stand back to back with one of the students already standing up in front of the room. She then counted the number of students in the front of the room along with the students. She then introduced the idea of "odd man out". She asked the students if they knew what that phrase meant, one student explained that it meant the person doesn't have a partner. After a short discussion they recorded the number 3 in the "Not all in Pairs" column. This process continued with every single student being pulled to the front of the room, counting the number of students out loud and then discussing if the number was in all in pairs or not in pairs. The teacher then explained that when the numbers are not all in pairs it meant it was odd, because "someone" was left out, and that all of the numbers that have all pairs are called even. These terms were then talked about and practiced several times. Now after this lesson every day when they have their calender time, they are asked whether or not the number of days they have been in school is an odd or an even number. Surprisingly after only a few days all most all of the students are able to identify even and odd numbers. I thought this was a very interesting, unique, and engaging way for students to learn about odd and even numbers and it seemed to stick with them.

The image below is very similar to the T-chart that was created in the classroom during the lesson.