Lesson 6 – Making Comparisons, Making Substitution

What we did:

1) Attendance was less than expected, thus 3 groups instead of 4 were formed.

2) An example question on the topic of the day was given to them, introducing them to the idea of making comparisons and substitutions.

3) We then gave them exercise questions one by one, and gave out points to the fastest answer as an extra incentive.

4) The 2 winning groups were given chocolate bars and everyone was given sweets.

Amount spent: $5.00 (excluding photocopying of worksheet)

Reflections

This is the first lesson after the long June holidays break, and as expected both the teachers and students needed some time to get used to the lessons. As usual we bought some candies before the lesson started and got down to CHIJ OLGC and made final preparations.

The girls appeared cheerful as usual and had no problems rearranging themselves into fewer groups due to absence of a few individuals. In no time at all we introduced them to the topic, “Making Comparisons, Making Substitutions”. Again, this was a topic we handpicked from a list of possible lessons, as we thought it was relevant to their curriculum yet fun and different from their daily work at the same time.

The girls answered the first example question we gave them in no time at all. This was pleasing for us as this promptness set the tone for the rest of the lesson. We then gave out the exercise questions to them.

It was worth noting that this lesson went extremely smoothly, with the usual minor quarrels and arguments no more prevalent. Instead each group worked as one and strived to be the winning group of the day.

At the end of the lesson the winning groups received chocolate bars and everyone sweets as reward for their hard work. As everyone went home with their candy with happy faces, we can’t help but smile along and go on to prepare next week’s lesson.

Lesson 5 - Using Visualization

What we did:
(basically the usual procedures)
1) we split the girls into their respective groups to facilitate discussion
2) we introduced them to the topic 'Using Visualization', and gave the girls an example question
3) we then gave them the questions to do one by one, with points given for the fastest answers
4) winning 2 groups were given snacks and every participant sweets.

Amount spent: $5.40


Reflections

This is the first lesson in which the topic was chosen by ourselves. We chose this topic as we feel that it is quite different from conventional math yet fun at the same time. Instead of using basic formulas and calculations, students are to think out of the box to arrive at the answer. Examples include dividing relatively irregular shapes into equal parts.

At first the lesson went all right, as the girls were very interested in the topic and listened attentively. However, as the lesson went on, the girls went rather rowdy and rather over-excited, and that somewhat disrupted the lesson as the overall atmosphere was one of noise and to some extent chaos. However, after frequent reminders to kepp quiet, the later part of the lesson still went smoothly.

Although the general noise level was high, we were quite pleased to see that the girls were eagerly trying their utmost best to attempt the questions. However, as with the other lessons we have so far, there appeared to be minor internal arguments between the girls in each group. We have discussed this problem, and regrouping of the girls is one of the solutions we have in mind.

Although the topic was very interesting, we did not find a need to use external materials. Thus, the whole lesson was done using plainly pen and paper. We feel that this definitely has room for improvement as we have previously sought out to make the lessons different from normal classroom lessons, not just content-wise but also process-wise.

The lesson ended as usual with us giving out snacks as prizes to the girls for their efforts. It was yet another fun yet tiring day.

Lesson 4: Eliminating Impossibilities

What we did
-Split the girls into their groups
-Introduction to "Eliminating Impossibilities"
-Gave them an example question which we did on the board
-Gave them questions one by one to do. Fastest group to finish a question will get points which vary depending on the difficulty of the question
-Top 2 groups were given prizes (Normally snacks and sweets)

Reflections

Today's lesson was pretty dry as we didn't use any extra materials. However, the mentees were still quite excited, probably driven by the points system and prizes. The conflicts between the 2 mentees and another mentee from a group seems to have disappeared and they were discussing the questions together.

We started the lesson with the same procedure, an example first then give them questions. Everything was going well except for the fact that the mentees were pretty noisy at times and they get noisier every lesson. Some have resorted to walking around the classroom and fooling around. We think this is probably because we are giving them questions page, so when a group is done with the assigned question, they either have no more questions to do or are too lazy to do while waiting for others. For that, we do have to think of a new approach.

1 or 2 groups were struggling with the questions because they couldn't understand the concepts. We had to spend extra time and effort to make them understand the topic. We are thinking of re-grouping them again after a few more lessons.

The rest of the lesson went pretty well except for a few disruptions from the over-excited mentees which left us pretty exhausted as usual :P

Lesson 3: Making A Systematic List

What We Did
1) Regrouped the girls
- Due to some conflicts between a few girls
- New approach
- Instead of giving them the whole stack of worksheets, we gave them page by page to prevent some groups from doing the questions ahead of the others and giving the others a disadvantage.

2)Materials Used
- Play Money

Reflections
The lesson went pretty well even though we were short of people since Kern Choong had to leave halfway and Poh Sia was sick. The new approach of giving the questions page by page worked very well and prevented conflicts among the groups because of unfairness. The girls were very excited about the play money we intended to use for a few questions. They got a bit too excited and messed around with the play money, which lead to the confiscation of the play money. A few girls did use the play money for the questions but most of them could visualize the money in their heads and were pretty quick in understanding the questions and solving them.
We re-grouped them because some girls were being left out of the group discussions due to some conflicts and unhappiness among some groups. Another reason is that there was 1 group that was extremely good in maths and another group that was not very proficient. This created an imbalance in the grouping and points system. The regrouping worked very well and everyone was involved in the solving of the questions in the end. However, there were still 1 or 2 girls who couldn’t fit into the group. We have decided to talk to them during the next session.
We feel that we still need to improve on how we discipline the girls. They tend to get very excited at times and can get quite uncontrollable. Usually, we just tell them to keep quiet but it takes a pretty long time for them to get the message and get back to their seats. After some discussion, we have decided to take away points if the group is to become too noisy.
All in all, this lesson went smoothly even though we were pretty tired because of the girls’ excitement. We ended with the usual prizes.

Lesson 2: Making a Pattern

What we did:
[1] Same thing as last week
[2] Prepared materials on table
[3] Got another table
Reflections:
[1] Some students had no chance to participate
[2] Some students are naturally dominant
[3] Most of them not reliant on learning tools provided
[4] We need to review our system to get them more engaged, to ensure all of them to participate
$$$ Spent:
$S13.00

Lesson 1: Act It Out

What we did:
[1] Prepared sweets & Pandang Cake as Prizes (There was a cake cutting question, and we left that for last)
[2] Implemented Points System
[3] Spilt them into groups of 4
[4] Started on Chapter 1, Act it out
[5] We used the whiteboard to show them 2 questions, with interaction among us and the students
[6] After that, it was discussion in groups
[7] It was very engaging for the students
Reflections:
[1] It was much more fun than expected
[2] The students were very engaged
[3] We did not have to think of any ways to get them engaged, they were attentive and interested.
[4] The Points & Prize System worked out nicely.
$$$ Spent:
$S5.00