Teaching Greatest Common Factor - Woo Hoo!

Well, today's lesson was on Greatest Common Factor - Unit 3 Lesson 3 in the 5th grade Math Book. I tried to make it as interesting a subject as I can since when you see the topic it really doesn't excite many people. :-(

I set up the classroom with the PowerPoint I was going to present and the quiz ready to be file transferred to the students at the end. Class began at 10AM. The first thing we did was to make sure everyone could hear me so I performed a "sound check". I instructed the students to give me a smiley face if they could hear me ok. One step down and it was on to the lesson.

I set it up so students could chat with me but they couldn't with others. We had a previous problem where one student would not stop harassing another with questions and even starting shouting by using all caps. Since I didn't want another repeat of this I felt it was a good idea to limit the students writings (although they really did want to chat). I have also noticed when they have chat privileges they are not paying attention to the lesson. Greatest Common Factor is not an easy lesson so I wanted to make sure they stayed on task and focused.

We started by defining what the words Greatest, Common, and Factor meant. Since these can be a challenge to remember, I broke it down into more familiar words. Greatest=Largest, Common = Same, and Factor=Number. They felt more comfortable once I presented it in terms to which they could easily relate.

Came to the first hurdle when I realized as we were talking about factors and multiplication sentences, the students didn't have a firm grasp of the multiplication facts. NOTE TO SELF: Send websites for students to practice these facts. These have to be mastered in order to work on the more complicated 5th grade Math. Reminded students to practice, practice, practice those facts.

I think by the time we are finished with the lesson they will realize how important those facts are to Math. Started working on listing the factors of 2 different numbers 15 and 40. Created a table and under the number listed all of the multiplication sentences which make up the number. Start with 1 on the far left hand side and continue with 2, 3 etc. If the number does not have a number sentence which begins with one of the numbers in numerical order, go to the next. I explained how they would be able to easily list the factors by listing the sentences in this manner. Needed to remind them that for example 4x9 is the same as 9x4 and it doesn't need to be listed twice.

I started for them with the 1x15 and 1x40. Then asked the class who thought they could come up with the next sentence. Hands started being raised since they knew they would get to talk in the mic and write on the board. Once that first one confidently answered, everyone wanted a turn. We finally listed all of the factors and now it was time to put them in order numerically. This is why I mentioned to list them from 1 on down since when you look at it starting with 1 and moving down and they over to the right with the last number sentence you will have your factors in numerical order. Much easier to find the common and greatest number this way.

They did great with the example so we moved on to problems they could do on their own. Had 4 students working each on a separate problem. Make sure to mention next time not to use the highlighter since it writes to fat. Some students had calculation errors so I reminded them to look over the factors they had listed and see if they noticed anything. Most of them did well in finding their errors.

They really enjoyed being able to use the mic and write on the board. This helped to keep them engaged. Pushed the quiz to them and told them to figure out the answers and then email them back to me. I said I would let them know if they were correct or needed to try again. Not many have responded so I might what to make this a quiz they do in the room instead. I will probaby want to test them on the multiplication facts every once and a while to make sure they are working on them.

Students seemed to understand the lesson. Next we will work with Primes and Composite numbers since they will see these when working with factors. I hope they can grasp this concept as well. Need to make sure I have an engaging lesson with this topic for sure!

Until later! Do you know your Multiplication facts? If not practice them!

Starting Grad School!

Well - I officially start Grad School tomorrow. My EDUC 782 (Educational Research) class begins on 9/8/09. I am also taking another class as well EDUC 729 (Instructional Analysis).

Our teacher for 782 is going to be using resources that are web based and might even try using Twitter. I have signed up for her tweets so we shall see how it goes. Haven't used Twitter much but this might need to change.

Here's to a great first semester back to school in 11 years. I know it will a huge amount of work, but in the end (as always) it will be worth it.

Keep checking back for updates!