Math Lessons for Intermediate Classes

In this week's class I was reliving my days as a student in grade 7 and grade 8 math classes. My fellow teacher candidates presented some interesting lesson ideas they created from the grade 7/8 math curriculum and the following are a few ideas that really stood out to me.

MTSOfan. (April 28th 2008)."Monopoly Justice"(Online Image).
Retrieved from:[https://goo.gl/images/OVPtRX] 

One of my colleagues presented a lesson on finances and money management which is a crucial concept for real life application. For years Monopoly has been a best selling board game and not just for its addictive nature but also because it is an important educational tool. My fellow teacher candidate created a lesson which was a play on Monopoly and the learning goal for the class was to understand daily expenses and how to properly manage your budget. The teacher had placed all the students in groups of 4-5 and had assigned a profession to each group or now known as each family. With their profession, the families received a monthly income statement and were instructed to collect their money from the bank which was paper monopoly money. The teacher then advised each family that they were to pay various bills (internet, phone, rent, grocery etc.) and one bill at a time the teacher would provide the percentage that each bill would take from their paycheck and the students were to calculate the exact dollar amount. What I truly enjoyed about this activity was that at all times the students were engaged. One student from each group was in charge of distributing money, collecting money, recording transactions and/or calculations. The students were even able to have fun playing the role of their professions such as the internet company collecting money or the banker handing it out. This activity clearly made the connection between earning and spending and although we were adults playing we even forgot about certain required expenses. Thus this would be a great reality check for students and the enforce the importance of budgeting which is a crucial life skill.

The second lesson that had me intrigued had us practicing with coordinate grids and transformations of figures. The teacher created a story called "Steve the Stick Figure" and the goal at the end of the activity was to explain Steve's story based on his movements. For this activity the class was divided in 8 groups. Each group was sent to a station and at each station we were given coordinates of two points; one representing Steve's head the other his body. After plotting the coordinates and drawing the stick figure on the provided coordinate grid we were to read the transformation instructions specific to that station. For example one station said "Steve walked three blocks right and four blocks north" we then had to translate our points three units right and four units up to find the new coordinates. We then searched for the next station with starting points that matched our coordinates after transformations. This process continued through until all 8 stations were visited and the path was completed. I enjoyed this activity especially the fact that the class was moving and it resembled that of a scavenger hunt for the correct coordinates. I also like the worksheets created for the assignment; one to draw out our figures on coordinate grids, one to organize our steps and describe the transformations that happened at each station, and to consolidate the lesson with a few critical thinking questions where we had to draw conclusions from the movements recorded. Overall I found this to be an excellent lesson and although it was noted to use this near the beginning of a unit I would suggest to use this activity near the end perhaps before a test as it encompasses a lot of different concepts.