Wednesday, April 22

Today was a good day here at the ole Western Middle School. Student behavior was great, the lesson was good (teacher directed, mostly, but good), and I was very happy with my student results. The lesson was geared on using cubes to find volume and surface area, then using cubes to find formulas for volume and surface area. At first, I thought my students might not be able to grasp the connection between using cubes to find volume and transferring that information into finding a formula, but they did! And they did it well. Today was one of the more satisifying experiences I have had in my classroom in the last month. I think that my expecations were high enough, and the students met them. I think it also helped having smaller class sizes today (for some reason, about half of my students were absent). I really think that I will continue this kind of small group work that is teacher directed ( I know it sounds confounding, but it's not) for the rest of the unit. This was by far the best lesson in the unit!

Also, on a good note, I finished preparing for my presentation today in my planning period! And I just ate a bunch of taco bell, so life is good...