Couch Coins

Today, I had 25 minutes to get as far as possible with Couch Coins and a second grade class at my school. I'd like to debrief on a few things, but here's Act 1.

During the Summer 2012, I found a money/coins concept in a Second Grade Everyday Mathematics book similar to Couch Coins. I was inspired by PES' Coinstar commercial and ran with the concept. The intended question is: "What coins will my wife get?" On my way into work knowing that I would soon be surrounded by seven and eight year olds, I announced to Twitter that I'd be doing this 3 Act lesson with second graders today and wondered how it will go, asking for their thoughts. The response was great. Robert Kaplinsky, Christopher Danielson, and Sadie Estrella all chimed in offering that money can be challenging and to be careful of the "fewest coins" part of the task. In other words, finding the total value of the coins and half the total might just be challenging enough for second graders. Chris Lusto (in true Lusto fashion) provided some comedic relief:

Act One: Which one of these kids do you think has to pee? Act Two: Watch them squirm. Act Three: Reveal. (Act Four: Clean up.)

Why just 25 minutes? I had to bail after 25 minutes to go teach my own students (8th graders) or else I would have had about 50 minutes with these second grade kiddos. So what transpired in those precious 1500 seconds? I asked the students what they wondered and noticed about the Act 1 video. I had them write down at least one thing they wondered and one thing they noticed. I asked them to share, starting with "notice." Keep in mind my time was limited here so I only took a few...

-The coins were moving on the chair like magic.
-There were just coins.
-There were a lot of quarters.

Now, I asked what they wondered. I followed each student question with, "Who else would like to know the answer to that question?"

-Why are the coins moving out of the couch? 10
-How did the coins stack like they did? 7
-How much is half of the coins? 10
-How many coins were moving on the couch? 3

Not one student asked anything about the coins my wife should get. NO PROBLEM! You can see there was a tie between two questions and don't ask why the numbers are so low; the class had 26 kids. I told the students since most of the questions revolved around the animated coins, I would reveal the camera magic at the end while we focus on the other top (main) question: How much is half the coins?

Time for estimating the right answer and guessing a number that's too low and too high. The second graders really enjoyed this part. One student felt 10 cents was too low because they saw quarters. One student was very proud of his $99,999 being too high. Once we got our estimates, I asked the class to read and revisit the main question: "How much is half of the coins?" I typically ask my students to reengage with the task/question before moving to Act 2 so we are reminded of our task.

Here comes Act 2: I asked the students what information would help them answer the main question. Many raised their hands. One student said, "We need to know how many of each coin." This was immediately followed by agreements voiced as "yea" or "that's what I was going to say." I displayed this information and we had less than 10 minutes to work. The second grade teacher broke the kids into groups.

Students were chatting, drawing pictures, using tally marks, adding by grouping, and using other strategies. One student asked, "Can we get out our money bags?" My response, "Shyea!" (translated yes). It was fascinating to see them operate for that short amount of time. I wish I had taken pictures. Sorry everyone! I had to leave.

This morning before the lesson, the teacher and I talked about the expectation of her students and the original task. She knew her kids were capable of finding the total and half. However, she also thought that finding the fewest coins might prove to be a challenge. The second grade teacher and my pals on Twitter were right. I think Act 1 deserves an edit saying, "My wife wants half of the money." This allows the sequel to be, "What coins would my wife get if she also wants the fewest coins?" and this can be used for the early finishers.

This experience reminds me that I need to record one of these 3 Act lessons so you guys can help me get better at doing them. There's still a ways to go, but I'm loving the opportunity to work with other teachers and grade level students. I've learned so much from these other teachers. I have a great respect for elementary teachers. I also love seeing how elementary students remind me that learning can be a blast. They're not going through puberty. They're energetic. They're so much fun! Not fun enough for me to pursue a multiple subject credential and teach primary though. I love my middle schoolers. I received an email from the teacher this afternoon saying:

It was hard, awesome, fun and different, cool, fantastic, interesting, the best, made us smarter, fabulous, I liked it, and magical!  Those were a few of the comments from my class about the math lesson this morning:)  Thanks for spending some time with us this morning!  It was fun for me, too!!

Soon, I will also be posting about my recent experiences in a 4th grade (Back Box2) and 5th grade (iPad percentages) classroom. Thanks for reading!

Cha-ching,
1119

Wooden Balance Game Pt. I

Let's play a game! Actually, you're welcome to invite your students to join in the fun here as well. Here's what you do:

1. Watch the video below.
2. Check out the specs.
3. Submit your order.

1. Video:

2. Wooden Solids and specs:

Make estimates of the dimensions.

What do you notice? What do you wonder?

3. Submit:  goo.gl/naDhr

Good luck! I'll tally your submissions for the week and stack the top configuration.

Balance,
327

Quotes of the Week [QOTW]

Have your students said something that completely moved you?
Was it insightful?
Was it relative?
Was it an epiphany?
Was it a proclamation?
Ok, let's not get carried away.

I hope you know what I'm talking about. Those comments become even more powerful when students see you acknowledge them and they didn't even think you were paying attention. I'm talking about those insightful things students say while they're collaborating with their peers, discussing solutions, or completing tasks. They blurt out something that catches you off guard (in a good way). The first semester has come to a close and I'm reflecting on student quotes. Quotes of the week: QOTW.

My students have said some great stuff and I was lucky enough to start telling myself to capture it on our front whiteboard. Why are there so many opportunities to hear what they say? Because we do a lot of group work and collaboration so they're bound to say something sensational. It's not about me. It's about them. They don't think I'm listening, but I am.

There's a section now carved out on my whiteboard for student quotes. It happened out of happenstance. This wasn't planned. I didn't find this idea somewhere on the wild internet (although it'd be cool if someone started a site for student quotes). A couple of students said something toward the beginning of the year and I wrote it on the board to share with all my classes throughout the day. They went nuts. Students were quoting the quote. I snapped a picture of it to make room for the next big quote and away we went. I'd like to share some of my favorites with you as I shared them with my students today.

"There has to be an easier way!" This is the one that started it all! In response to solving a weekly PS (Lucky 7’s) given to me by Fawn Nguyen, a group of students was filling their pages with numbers as they worked through exponential rules. Shawn continued the pattern for a long time on his paper, badly wanting to figure out the nth term in the pattern, lifted his head and let out this gem. The rest is history.

"Do it really neat so no one writes any bad stuff." After getting our new whiteboards and whiteboarding for a few days, students walked the room dishing out some harsh criticism to each other and their work. After addressing this criticism with them, students realized the importance of keeping their work clean, organized, and neat. Before beginning their task, Will verbalized his desire to be neat as to motivate his group. Good idea!

"We're actually learning." Yes, girls we’re actually learning. That’s because you’re actually thinking on your own while exploring math and not being told some procedure to regurgitate back to me. This was the result of my geometry class exploring parallel and perpendicular lines in a coordinate plane. These two girls were struggling for a day or two without any intervention from me and on the third day they had their shining moment. 

"That's upsetting me!" A quote is only as good as the context that goes with it. If you look at this quote, it could be your typical math student after doing the typical math question, resulting in typical frustration. However, Elle was working with her group on my Transversals, Tape, and Stickies task where they were given limited clues and had to identify twelve angles created by three intersecting lines. The bell rang and as she was heading back to her desk, let this one rip. She wanted resolution and was upset she didn't complete her task before leaving for the day. She came in the following day and conquered it with her group! Tenacious!

"Is that the opposite of PEMDAS?" In solving equations using inverse operations, James asks if the procedure is basically the opposite of PEMDAS (order of operations). Why, yes James it is. This was an "a-ha" moment for him. I couldn’t let this one escape.

"I plugged mine in. It worked! It's ALIVE!" You know those stories where someone says, "You had to be there." This is one of those stories. Elijah was checking his answer to an algebraic equation. Sure he could've just got a number for his answer and stopped, but he didn't. This is Elijah plugging in and verifying that his answer is the only solution. His excitement that the solution worked is hard to capture with an EXPO marker, but he took on the persona of a mad scientist, a la Frankenstein. I didn't write it on the board, but his "It's ALIVE!" was followed by "MWOOHAHAHA!" I love it!

"That doesn't make any sense." Another quote that could be any math student at any time. We've all been there. We've all heard this before, but what's the story here? Sierra said this after doing her calculations for our Stacking Cups task. She received some weird number of cups to stack as tall as Mr. Stadel. She immediately points out to her group that it doesn't make any sense. I love how students might be getting numbers, but they're checking those numbers for reasonableness before applying them. Back to the drawing board she went.

"We're demanding more information." The classic case of eating your own words. This past week we were exploring both Fawn Nguyen's and Dan Meyer's infamous Graphing Stories. All my classes began asking for more information as we progressed through Dan's videos. I continually praised them for demanding more information. We were working on the MARS lesson "Interpreting Distance-Time Graphs" I stole from Fawn and the students wanted more information as they wrote a story for Tom. I repeatedly refused any help by saying, "no" or "be creative" or "use the information on the page." Sean quickly replied, "But, Mr. Stadel we're demanding more information." You got me Sean! He practically jumped out of his seat when he saw me writing his quote on the board. FUN, right?

Expect a blooper's reel when doing this. you'll have the clowns that want to force something or think they're saying something sensational. That's my George. "I like colors." I don't think so George. You can stop now.

I can't make this up. I'm not paying my students to say this stuff. It's not contrived. It's natural. It's authentic. This board reminds my students that I'm listening. The more I can capture these and write these up, I believe the safer it is for my students to take risks, share their thoughts, and explore math. It's all them, but remember every quote has a story. So keep listening!

QOTW,
909