Joy Scott ED270 Fall ‘12
Grade level: 4th or 5th
Content area: Mathematics
Title: Math is for everyone!
Content area goal: an introduction to algebra by using pictures instead of letters and allowing students
to create their own problems so that they feel more in touch with the content rather than just learning
about it.
Technology Standards: #1 Creativity and Innovation will be addressed in the unit because students will
be using apps to practice their math and then they will get a chance to create their own problems using
the chalkboard in the app. Also #6 Technology concepts will be addressed because students will be
learning how to use the ipad and exploring the possibilities. Also they will be using a video camera which
is good practice for critically looking for the right angles and zooming in appropriately.
Mobile Apps Integrated: Banana Math which specializes in numbers, addition, subtraction, algebra,
geometry, money, and time.
Resource/Materials:
We will be creating a podcast of what they learned in the lesson so we will be using Garage Band.
Unit Outline:
People tend to be scared of algebra because it has letters in it that are unknown and people
don’t know what to do with them so I want to introduce it in a way that makes sense and is not so
abstract that students don’t understand it. I would start out by illustrating problems on the board by
using things in the room to represent a numbers such as hats. If I held up a hat and said that it
represented an unknown number we could find this number by counting how many hats there were in
the room. We then could decide that we wanted to multiply hats with windows so we would have to
count the number of windows in the room to determine the number that the windows represented. I
would allot about 10 minutes to this segment as an introduction.
After playing around with that activity everyone would get out an ipad provided by the school
because it recently received money to help the school educate their students in technology and they
decided to invest it in ipads. They would work in the app called Banana Math because it introduces the
kind of problems that we just did as a whole class by using pictures of objects and saying how many
objects that picture represents rather than using variables. It has a drawing board underneath the
problems so they can write out the problems they are working on. There would be about 30 minutes of
getting familiar with the app and doing the math.
After they have had a chance to get comfortable with how the problems are shown then everyone
thinks of their own problems to write on the drawing board. They can use objects in the room in their
problems or they can think of their own pictures. They draw the pictures on the board and make a note
somewhere of how many of that object are represented by the picture. I would give the children time
to be creative in their problems because they are likely to have some valuable learning moments as they
create their own problems. 15 minutes should be enough time for children to think through what they
had learned and create a problem that they would like to share with the class. If there were a lot of kids
it might have to be groups making the problems to save time in the show and tell part of it because,
realistically there isn’t a whole lot of time to do this kind of thing because schools are so pressed for
time to make sure kids are learning exactly what is on the test so they can pass it. I wish it wasn’t such a
big deal.
At the end each child has a chance to write their problem in the front of the room and explain it.
Some children may not ever have the chance of explaining a problem in front of the class because they
are not sure if they have it right and the more outgoing kids raise their hands first but when they create
their own problem they can make it any way they want and when they talk about it that will give them a
chance to hear their own voice walk through a problem. That really helps a lot of people understand it
better. During this time children will take turns video taping the event so that they can document it. By
passing around the camera, everyone can have a chance at practicing their skills of being a good
observer and figure out what the best angle and distance is for watching someone teach a concept. This
activity would take between 40 minutes to an hour, depending on how many children there were.
Making the podcast would not have to be done right then if there wasn’t time. It could be a
follow up project the next day. The teacher would put up Garage Band on the big screen so everyone
could see and talk about the different aspects of the program. The children could help put it together by
throwing out suggestions and choosing what music and how to set up the picture. The podcast would
be viewed afterwards as a refresher for the math lesson and to let the children enjoy what they created.
30-45 minutes could be allotted for this time and this would be a great introduction to podcasting so
that children could make their own simple podcasts as their next assignment.
These are basically all in-classroom assignments because of the technology used and a lot of
children don’t have access to this kind of thing outside of class. The teacher would assess by moving
around observing if the children understand what they are doing and giving examples and helps when
needed. By talking to children about the problems they created the teacher can get a good idea of how
well they understand what they are talking about.