Cloud Nine

 Let me first say that I have had my fair share of lesson stinkers! You know, the kind that go downhill fast and you have to drop it all together and switch to plan B? Well, I am happy to say I did NOT have one of those lessons today. I had the kind of lesson that just leave you on cloud nine for the rest of the day! I am so excited to share it with you today.

I have to say that I had a hidden agenda in this lesson today besides comparing measurements. My class has had trouble getting along. I have quite a few who tend to be a bit bossy and want to be in charge. This has become a problem because lately when we work in groups there is more arguing than there is work! So I hoped by giving them a common goal with a little incentive of being able to say that they built the longest chain would help.

I started the lesson by showing the kids a paper chain and told them that they would be working with their team to make one. I had 4 teams each with a different color of strips. I told them the goal was to make the longest chain. I set the timer for 5 minutes and let them work!

When the time was up I collected all the chains. Can you tell which teams worked together this best? This activity helped me explain to the kids later how teams that work together and help each other can be really successful and teams that argue? Not so much. Back to the math lesson!

We measured.

We compared.

We used the number line to find the difference between our measurements. 

We all contributed to our poster by writing comparative sentences. We will do a few more tomorrow as a review before our benchmark test!

Loved hearing the kiddos discuss this difficult math task and use strategies we've been working on. Plus they learned a lesson in teamwork! Happy dance!!