It was such a pleasure to observe a co-taught math lesson at Little Chute Elementary School this spring. Lisa Klein and Karla Baier have been co-teaching kindergarten together for several years. Their fluidity and parity is top-notch! It is clear that they plan together, being thoughtful about ways to address IEP goals, various levels in the room, executive function and language skills and the need for multi-modality learning.
The lesson started with both teachers reviewing the learning target, embedding lots of gestures and choral rehearsal. The co-teachers then acted out various work behaviors and asked students to discuss whether they were appropriate or inappropriate behaviors. Finally, it was time for students to build cup stack math facts!
The teachers prepared three different colors of plastic drinking cups. The blue cups included basic addition equations, minus the solutions. The red cups had a single digit (solutions.) The green cups had higher level addition and subtraction facts. To avoid any stigma with the levels, Karla announced that she had run out of blue cups and asked 3 students to help her out by hunting for the green cups instead. Cups were scattered around the room so that students had to hunt to find them.
The lesson started with both teachers reviewing the learning target, embedding lots of gestures and choral rehearsal. The co-teachers then acted out various work behaviors and asked students to discuss whether they were appropriate or inappropriate behaviors. Finally, it was time for students to build cup stack math facts!
The teachers prepared three different colors of plastic drinking cups. The blue cups included basic addition equations, minus the solutions. The red cups had a single digit (solutions.) The green cups had higher level addition and subtraction facts. To avoid any stigma with the levels, Karla announced that she had run out of blue cups and asked 3 students to help her out by hunting for the green cups instead. Cups were scattered around the room so that students had to hunt to find them.
The movement and manipulatives boosted engagement and learning! After the lesson, cups can be rinsed off for other content - word families, synonyms, nouns and verbs, etc. The possibilities are endless!
Thanks, Lisa and Karla, for sharing this idea and for collaborating for student success!
Thanks, Lisa and Karla, for sharing this idea and for collaborating for student success!
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