Wednesday, April 23, 2008

Rectangular Prism

One of the rites of passage of any new teacher is having your professor come during student teaching to observe you and provide a critique of the lesson. Today it was Mr. Lawton's turn as his professor from CSULA watched his lesson on determining the surface area of a rectangular prism. Mr. Lawton came in with dozens of small cereal boxes. The students cut these up and determined the size of the area by putting them on a sheet of graph paper. They did a great job with this activity and it served as a great introduction to learning the formula. The students now get the idea that there are six faces on a rectangular prism and that the total area is equal to the area of each face. It was a lot of fun, and the students were marvelously cooperative. Some pictures of this activity are found above.

We also spent some time in Tech Center beginning to learn the garage band program. The students had composed some short rhythmic and melodic motifs during music time, and we had recorded them playing these on boomwhackers. The short passages are known as "ostinati" and they serve as the underpinning for a melody. In the upcoming weeks students will be refining their melodies to make them work well with the ostinati.

The rest of the day was pretty regular. We checked homework, did reading, went out to PE, and, of course, had lunch and recess.

Home Studies: Last night was pretty heavy so we'll take a day off. Enjoy!

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