Buidling to Spec - Cuisenaire Rod lesson plan #2

Lesson Plan – J. Pisano
Building to Spec – Cuisenaire Rods Grades 3-4
Complete/Review Do Now and homework

Learning Expectations:
*construct shapes that satisfy a given set of conditions
* give and follow a set of directions
* compare different shapes that may result from the same set of clues

Activities:
* Give a set of clues and have students build a Cuisenaire Rod shape that fits the clues – allow pairs of students to adjust and discuss their solutions after each clue is given.
• The shape is a hollow square
• The shapes uses more than one color
• The shape has exactly six rods
• One of the rods is purple
* Share solutions and discuss how they are alike and different. Students complete On Their Own
* How many Cuisenaire Rod shapes can you build that satisfy a given set of clues?
1. Work with a group. Pick a set of clues. You will take turns removing clues from the envelope and reading them aloud.
2. After the first clue is read, you should make a shape that satisfies the clue. Check one another’s work. Your shapes may or may not look alike.
3. After the second clue is read, you may make changes to your shape to satisfy both clues. Check one another’s work.
4. Read the other clues, making any necessary changes.
5. Compare the final shapes to make sure that they each satisfy all 4 clues. Record your shapes.
6. When your group is finished return clues to envelope and choose another to repeat the activity.

Discussion questions – In what ways did you change your shape to satisfy a new clue? What type of clues did you find the hardest to satisfy? Explain. Do you think the order in which the clues came out of the envelope made a difference? Would a different order have made it easier to build the shape? Explain.

Extending the Activity
1. Students create a shape using 6 rods or fewer and write as many clues as they can to describe the shape.
2. Students work in pairs to create a shape and write a set of 4 clues that describes the shape. Exchange sets of clues and try to solve.

Assessments: teacher observations, game play and follow up discussion

Materials: Cuisenaire rods, 1-cm grid paper, clues
Tech Infusion: Promethean board – flipchart, laptops – Virtual Manipulatives website

Accomodations/Modifications:
* teacher designed groups
* differentiated assignments/activities (centers to reach all levels)
* extended time-classwork/assessments(when needed)
* restructured homework assignments for both above level and below level students
* use of manipulatives/graphic organizers
* extension activities/alternative assignments
* encouraging independence/student initiative
* includes a rich variety of resources, media ideas, methods and tasks
* proximity to teacher
* personalized monitoring tools (checklists, goal sheets, thumbs up/down level understanding monitors)

Homework: short-constructed response review
Standards: MA.4.4.5 A.1, MA.4.4.5 A.2.b, MA.4.4.5 A.5, MA.4.4.5 B.1.b, MA.4.4.5 B.2, MA.4.4.5 B.3, MA.4.4.5 D.2, MA.4.4.5 D.3, MA.4.4.5 D.4, MA.4.4.5 F.1

Geoboards Lesson - Area of Four

This lesson is found under Grades 3-4 Geoboards - Area of Four - Children use geoboards to make different shapes, each with an area of 4 square units.

Anticipatory Set:Complete/Review Do Now and homework

Learning Expectations:
· make shapes with a given area
· use a variety of methods for finding area
· discover that different shapes can have the same area

Activities:
Can you make different-looking Geoboard shapes that have the same area?
• With a partner, make at least 9 different Geoboard shapes, each with an area of 4 square units. Work together to decide how to measure the area of each shape.
• Record your shapes on geodot paper.
• Now choose 2 of your shapes to record on large geodot paper.

Have children take turns posting their larger drawings. Ask children to compare the posted shapes to see if any are congruent. Have them remove any duplicate shapes so that the posted solutions are all different.
Use prompts such as these to promote class discussion:
v How did you find new shapes?
v How did you make sure each shape had an area of 4 square units?
v For which shapes was finding area easy? For which shapes was it harder? Explain why.
v What do you notice when you look at the posted shapes?

Extending the Activity
1. Have children create categories by which to sort their posted shapes. Some examples might be number of sides, square corners/no square corners, parallel sides/no parallel sides.
2. Have children repeat the activity for shapes with areas of 3 or 5 square units.

Assessments:teacher observations, shapes, student-centered discussion

Materials/Tech Infusion:communicators, geoboards, laptops, Promethean board, Virtual Manipulative – geoboards

Accomodations/Modifications:* teacher designed groups* differentiated assignments/activities (centers to reach all levels) * extended time-classwork/assessments(when needed)* restructured homework assignments for both above level and below level students* use of manipulatives/graphic organizers* extension activities/alternative assignments* modified assessments - M/C, SCR, ECR, O-E* encouraging independence/student initiative* includes a rich variety of resources, media ideas, methods and tasks

· Homework: Math – open ended response question

Geoboard Lesson Plan - 3, 4, 5 and more

This lesson comes from Geoboards - Grades 3-4 on the lesson plan disk. This lesson allows children to make polygons with different numbers of sides on their Geoboards. They then investigate the similarities and differences.

Anticipatory Set:Complete/Review Do Now and homework
Learning Expectations:
*classify polygons according to the number of sides
* discuss attributes of geometric shapes
* use the language of geometry
Activities:
* How many different polygons can you make on the Geoboard?
• Work with your group. Each of you make a closed shape—a polygon—with 1 rubber band. Each person’s shape should have a different number of sides.
• Compare your shapes. Once you agree that each shape has a different number of sides, record your shape on geodot paper.
• Repeat this process until your group thinks it has made shapes with every different number of sides that it can.
• Record your square. Think about how you could rearrange the tiles to form a different solution. Look for other solutions. If you find any, record them, too. Be ready to explain the decisions you made.
** Students work with both geoboards and the virtual manipulatives.

Thinking and Sharing
Post children’s shapes into columns by number of sides. Begin by calling for shapes with three sides and continue by calling for shapes with an increasing number of sides. Label each column by the number of sides. Then, when all the shapes have been posted, write the appropriate geometric names above each column—Triangles, Quadrilaterals, Pentagons, Hexagons, Heptagons, Octagons, Nonogons, Decagons, and so on.

Use prompts such as these to promote class discussion:
* Look at the shapes in one column. How are they alike? Are any exactly the same?
* How are the shapes within a column different? Why are different-looking shapes in the same column?
* Which shapes were the hardest to make? the easiest?
* Do you think it is possible to make shapes with even more sides on the Geoboard? Explain.

Assessments:teacher observations, shapes, student-centered discussion

Materials/Tech Infusion:communicators, geoboards, laptops, Promethean board, Virtual Manipulative – geoboards

Accomodations/Modifications:
* teacher designed groups* differentiated assignments/activities (centers to reach all levels) * extended time-classwork/assessments(when needed)* restructured homework assignments for both above level and below level students* use of manipulatives/graphic organizers* extension activities/alternative assignments* modified assessments - M/C, SCR, ECR, O-E* encouraging independence/student initiative* includes a rich variety of resources, media ideas, methods and tasks
**** Homework: Math – open ended response question

Virtual Manipulatives - Geoboard Coordinate

I like this manipulative found under Geometry grades 3-5. This is similar to the basic geoboard manipulative where the students can place rubber bands and make shapes. It also shows the perimter and the area of each shape. This coordinate manipulative is useful to introduce students to the 4 quadrants and negative numbers. I have been working with my students on graphing ordered pairs and this allowed them to continue to explore the negative numbers and get comfortable working with them while creating their own designs.

Lesson Plan - Shopping for Rods

Cuisinaire Rods - Grades 3-4 Shopping for Rods Activity

Anticipatory Set: Review homework and complete Do Now

Expectations: ~compute mentally~ work with money concepts~ use ratio and proportion~ discover relationships among Cuisenaire Rods

Procedure: Revisit the procedure for determining the value of the pattern blocks based on their fractional parts of the whole hexagon to set the stage for this activity.Tell students to imagine that the Cuisenaire Rods are for sale and that the white rod costs $1.00. Invite volunteers to explain why the red rod should cost $2.00. Once it is established that the red should cost twice as much as the white because it is twice as long, have children figure out the cost of a rod of each of the other colors. Show children that the cost of some rods can be determined in more than one way. Point out that the cost of the brown rod, $8.00, can be found by counting by ones, by twos, or by fours.
How many Cuisenaire Rods could you “buy” with $10.00?
• Work with a group. Pretend that your group has $10.00. You must spend it all to “buy” Cuisenaire Rods.
• To find the price of a particular rod, one of you spins a spinner.
• Use the results of the spin to find the prices of other rods. For example, if you spin “1 white rod costs $2.00,” a light green rod will cost $6.00 because it is 3 times longer than the white rod.
• Use the prices of the rods for your spin to answer these questions: What is the least number of rods you could buy for $10.00? What is the greatest number of rods you could buy for $10.00? What number of rods between the least and greatest numbers could you buy for $10.00?
• Take turns spinning until each member of the group has had a turn with a different starting price. For each turn, find the price of the rods and answer the questions above.
• Record your answers and any patterns you notice.

Writing and DrawingAsk children to pretend that they work for the company that makes Cuisenaire Rods. Have them design an advertisement that includes a price list for the rods based on the fact that one yellow rod costs $0.75.

Extending the Activity Have children create a picture or a design with Cuisenaire Rods and then spin the spinner to figure out the “cost” of their picture/design.

Lesson Plan - Color Tiles

Jennifer Pisano - Lesson Plans for Mon, 3/29/2010

Anticipatory Set:Complete/Review Do Now and homework
Learning Expectations: -use logical reasoning-develop a design that satisfies specific conditions-discover a new solution based on an old one

Activities:* Can you follow a set of rules to form a square arrangement of Color Tiles?
Work with a partner. Use 16 Color Tiles to form a square according to these rules:
* The square must have 4 of each color of tile.* No 2 tiles of the same color may touch along a side.* No 2 tiles of the same color may touch at a corner.* The order of the colors in each row must differ from the order in every other row.

• Record your square. Think about how you could rearrange the tiles to form a different solution. Look for other solutions. If you find any, record them, too. Be ready to explain the decisions you made.
** What strategies did you use to arrange your tiles?
Did you ever get “stuck”? If so, how did you get “unstuck”?
How could you be sure that your design followed all three rules?
Do you see any patterns in your design? Describe them.
Which other squares are exactly like yours? Which are different? How are they different?

Assessments:teacher observations, squares, student-centered discussion

Materials:communicators, color tilesTech Infusion:Promethean board - flipchart

Accomodations/Modifications:* teacher designed groups* differentiated assignments/activities (centers to reach all levels) * extended time-classwork/assessments(when needed)* restructured homework assignments for both above level and below level students* use of manipulatives/graphic organizers* extension activities/alternative assignments* modified assessments - M/C, SCR, ECR, O-E* encouraging independence/student initiative* includes a rich variety of resources, media ideas, methods and tasks

· Homework: Math – open ended response question
· Standards: MA.4.4.2.4 A.2.c, MA.4.4.2.4 A.5, MA.4.4.5 C.1

Virtual Manipulatives #8 - Mastermind

This manipulative is found in grades 3-5 Numbers and Operations. This is a game similar to the color tile logic game where the object is to guess the order of colored pegs. You win the game by discovering the colors of the four peg solution. You have 8 chances to correctly guess answer. After each guess you receive feedback consisting of black and white pegs. The number of black pegs is the number of correct pegs in your guess. That is, for example, one black peg tells you that exactly one of the pegs in your guess is the right color in the right place, but you don't know which one is correct. The number of white pegs is the number of pegs in your guess that are the correct colors but that are not placed in the correct positions, so two white pegs would tell you that two of your four pegs are correctly colored but not in the right locations.
This is a challenging game that students at all different levels can play since you can switch the number of colors used from 2 colors to 6 colors.