Tutoring tonight went so well--it really made my day. Higher Achievement provides lesson plans for each week, but I guess my kids are somewhat ahead of the other 7th graders, so I've been coming up with my own lesson plans. At our last session, I had a forensics themed lesson for A (who wants to be a forensic scientist and claims that her favorite TV show is "all the CSIs"). It went pretty well, but she was struggling with solving a simple equation with one variable. I tried talking her through it, but she was pretty confused about which steps to do first. This worried me, because solving equations like this is kind of crucial to the rest of math and... everything. She had "learned" how to do this in class, but was struggling with remembering a series of steps instead of thinking about whether what she was doing made sense, and she loses interest when faced with failure.
So this week I created a whole lesson plan around solving simple equations and word problems using M&Ms and "mystery bags" (variables). She actually did a lot better this week, and not only was she able to solve the problems using M&Ms, she was also able to write down her steps in algebraic notation, which is an improvement over last time. I was very pleased. I wasn't sure if I should bring in candy or not, because I was afraid it would distract from the lesson, but I think it actually kept A and T more interested, and they didn't pig out on the candy as I had feared.
Next week I'm substituting for another mentor, so I'll have her two kids plus mine. They've been working their way through the lesson plans provided by HAP, and it sounds like they've been struggling with percent/decimal/fraction conversions, and the concept of percent increase. I'll have to figure out how to help them understand the concepts, while keeping my two scholars engaged (and I'd prefer not to be trying to run two different lesson plans simultaneously). I enjoy the challenge, but I'm glad that I have a whole week to plan each lesson. Much respect to teachers who do it every day.
On a different note, I was talking with two of my housemates tonight and they were sharing Cacique lore (they're the only two left who have been here since I moved in). I knew that up until about 3 years ago, this had been a vegetarian house, even though omnivores lived here as well. But I didn't know how the house came to be vegetarian. Apparently Cacique used to be quite different--I believe "crack house" and "prostitution" were mentioned. At some point, somebody decided that they wanted the character of the house to change, so when rooms subsequently opened up, they advertised the house as vegetarian, with the idea that this would attract a certain demographic. Apparently it worked, and here we are, no prostitutes or crackheads among us, albeit past our strict vegetarian phase. I never really thought of "vegetarian" as shorthand for "upstanding citizen" before.
So this week I created a whole lesson plan around solving simple equations and word problems using M&Ms and "mystery bags" (variables). She actually did a lot better this week, and not only was she able to solve the problems using M&Ms, she was also able to write down her steps in algebraic notation, which is an improvement over last time. I was very pleased. I wasn't sure if I should bring in candy or not, because I was afraid it would distract from the lesson, but I think it actually kept A and T more interested, and they didn't pig out on the candy as I had feared.
Next week I'm substituting for another mentor, so I'll have her two kids plus mine. They've been working their way through the lesson plans provided by HAP, and it sounds like they've been struggling with percent/decimal/fraction conversions, and the concept of percent increase. I'll have to figure out how to help them understand the concepts, while keeping my two scholars engaged (and I'd prefer not to be trying to run two different lesson plans simultaneously). I enjoy the challenge, but I'm glad that I have a whole week to plan each lesson. Much respect to teachers who do it every day.
On a different note, I was talking with two of my housemates tonight and they were sharing Cacique lore (they're the only two left who have been here since I moved in). I knew that up until about 3 years ago, this had been a vegetarian house, even though omnivores lived here as well. But I didn't know how the house came to be vegetarian. Apparently Cacique used to be quite different--I believe "crack house" and "prostitution" were mentioned. At some point, somebody decided that they wanted the character of the house to change, so when rooms subsequently opened up, they advertised the house as vegetarian, with the idea that this would attract a certain demographic. Apparently it worked, and here we are, no prostitutes or crackheads among us, albeit past our strict vegetarian phase. I never really thought of "vegetarian" as shorthand for "upstanding citizen" before.
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