The Right Answer
I had a few minutes today with little to do so I went across the hall to watch one of my favorite teachers teach her math lesson. I love these little moments. They allow me to sit and soak in the skills of veteran teachers and to hopefully glean some bits of wisdom and method I might use eventually in my own classroom.
Today, she was teaching a lesson on subtracting two digit numbers. Specifically, she was teaching them how to regroup, or "borrow" as we learned it. She put a problem on the board: (it won't let me line the numbers up correctly, but you get the idea)
` 52
- 47
_____
And was talking the class through the problem using metaphors and cues to help them visualize the problem. She had already walked them through a few problems, showing them how to borrow from the tens column if the ones number wasn't large enough to subtract from. Now she was giving the class an opportunity to show her they had absorbed her lesson by telling it back to her.
"If I have 2 gum drops. Can I give Robby 7 of them?"
"No!" came the mostly unanimous answer from her class of second graders.
"You're right. I can't take away 7 from 2. I'm going to need to borrow," she said, pointing to the problem on the board. "Now, who can tell me, where am I going to borrow from? Sam?"
Sam looked up at his teacher confidently and replied, "Definitely from someone you know!"
Today, she was teaching a lesson on subtracting two digit numbers. Specifically, she was teaching them how to regroup, or "borrow" as we learned it. She put a problem on the board: (it won't let me line the numbers up correctly, but you get the idea)
` 52
- 47
_____
And was talking the class through the problem using metaphors and cues to help them visualize the problem. She had already walked them through a few problems, showing them how to borrow from the tens column if the ones number wasn't large enough to subtract from. Now she was giving the class an opportunity to show her they had absorbed her lesson by telling it back to her.
"If I have 2 gum drops. Can I give Robby 7 of them?"
"No!" came the mostly unanimous answer from her class of second graders.
"You're right. I can't take away 7 from 2. I'm going to need to borrow," she said, pointing to the problem on the board. "Now, who can tell me, where am I going to borrow from? Sam?"
Sam looked up at his teacher confidently and replied, "Definitely from someone you know!"
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