Today was an exciting day. I taught my first lesson in senior school, year 7 maths. I was introducing fractions to them, and as I know all of you are cringing, fear not because my girls did too. They started off very confident, and then by the end of the lesson they were hopelessly lost. Although, Mrs. Scott, my mentor teacher, complimented me on my boardwork and class involvement, saying they were "brilliant"! How exciting! Maths is definitely my comfort zone!
Then off the the prep school for double maths with the year 5 girls. We were discovering mental math short-cuts for multiplying. For example if you have 14x35, you can halve 14 to make 2x7x35 and then double 35 to make 7x70, which is much easier to calculate in your head. Took them a little while to catch on but in the long run, they will be better off, because those are practical math skills, that I feel we miss out on a lot in the states. We focus so much on methodology and application, that we miss out on the practicality of math.
Then off to year 6 science. The girls were completing circuits and testing metals to see if they would conduct electricity. One of the materials they wanted to test was gold, well, there wasn't a sample readily available (don't freak out Mom and Dad) so I let them use my Aggie ring! It was so cool though. So of course I had to document it, and my students loved looking at my ring.
Only 2 more days until London!!!!
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