This is a game that my Kindergarteners sometimes play during
literacy centers. This is called the “raft game” and requires the students to
be paired into groups of two. The rules are that one person rolls the dice and
the number determines how many beans they get out of a bag. Once a student gets
5 individuals beans, they must grab a plank which equals 5 beans. Then when the
student gets 5 planks, then they are allowed to swap it out for a raft, which
is 5 planks. The purpose of the game is for the partners to try to build a raft
first. The tricky thing about the game is for them to determine when they are
allowed to get a plank. If the students roll a 5 they can quickly decide they
need to swap the individual beans out. But if the students roll a 6, I usually
have to help them determine that they still need to switch out the individual
beans for a plank. Some students are faster at learning the pattern, while
other students struggle more and need more support from a teacher. I think that
the game is beneficial for students to work on addition and subtraction and
working with skip counting in groups of five. This could also relate to money
because 5 pennies equal a nickel and so on.
I do have a couple of questions about this game.
1.
Is it beneficial for all students? Or are some
students just messing around and not understanding the purpose of the game?
The teacher could do a quick check for understanding after the students finish playing. They could have a quick discussion and talk about what things the students found easy and challenging. Then the teacher could figure out which students need more practice and which ones need more difficult practice.
The teacher could do a quick check for understanding after the students finish playing. They could have a quick discussion and talk about what things the students found easy and challenging. Then the teacher could figure out which students need more practice and which ones need more difficult practice.
2.
Are students seeing the patterns that the
teacher wants them to see while playing the game?
The teacher could hold a discussion to see
if the students are noticing any patterns while they are playing. This could
take more scaffolding because they are in Kindergarten. You could also check
that they are benefiting from playing this game.
3.
When can the more advanced students move to higher
number like planks of 10 or even 20?
This is probably for higher grades, but I
could read into the common core standards and check what grades this game could
be used in. This could help students with grouping groups of 10 or other higher
numbers.
You ask:
ReplyDelete"Is it beneficial for all students? Or are some students just messing around and not understanding the purpose of the game? The teacher could do a quick check for understanding after the students finish playing. They could have a quick discussion and talk about what things the students found easy and challenging. Then the teacher could figure out which students need more practice and which ones need more difficult practice."
You should try to be more specific than this...just saying that the teacher should do a "quick check" and have a "quick discussion" does not help you think about how you would actually structure the task, the directions you would give, the numbers you might choose, the questions you might ask, how you might respond to specific student questions or solutions, etc.
This is why anticipating student thinking is so important, because it actually gives us some guidance as teachers in terms of how we might respond in the classroom...otherwise, it's very difficult to know what to do, because, as your analysis rightly points out, there are many uncertainties involved in classroom teaching, let alone when trying to lead students through a mathematical task.
So, try to think specifically about the mathematical relationships that are being explored through this task...Given those topics, what might be some student misunderstandings, and how might you respond to these students? What questions might you ask them that will support their exploration?