2nd Lesson

Today we taught our second lesson. Our lesson was pretty much a follow up to the first lesson on buying goods and services and reviewing of coin value. My partner began by reading her really cute story, Caps for Sale and reminded students to point out to the job of a peddler and what he needed in order to sell his caps and what he received for selling his caps. Then I reviewed with my students the value of the four coins we learned in our first lesson. I used my fingers to help them remember what each coin was worth. I could sense that the students understand the value of the first three coins, the penny, the nickel and dime, but they do have trouble understanding and differentiating between the nickel and dime. From here we moved on to our last activity where the students had to play the role of peddler/seller or buyer. We demonstrated and modeled if of course. Like the peddler in the story, we reminded that he was selling caps so one person in their group would play this role. They had pictures of caps with different prices on them worth a penny, 10 cents, nickel, and quarter. The rest of their group would play the role of buyer or consumers and in order to buy a cap they each had four coins (aforementioned). The seller would state, "Caps for Sale, 10 cents a cap for a blue cap" and starting with the person next to the seller, he/she had the opportunity to purchase a cap using his/her coins. I think the lesson went really well although there were some minor dilemmas. For one, I had a tougher group in terms of how their behavior usually becomes a problem. I had to work with K and D. Both of these students in particular K has critical problems paying attention and focusing on an activity so I felt that I had to guide him along the activity and I felt that in a way that jeopardized my guidance with the other students. Other than that I think the lesson was great, perhaps I would have changed some things like making the pictures bigger or having the students work in partners instead of as a group. I think this way would really help them focus and retain directions and understand the material further.