Talking, writing, and reasoning: Making thinking visible with math journals
http://www.readwritethink.org/lessons/lesson_view.asp?id=820
A lesson plan for grades 3–5 English Language Arts and Mathematics
Students are encouraged to talk about and record their attempts at math problems as they work and record solutions, strategies, and other observations. As an opening activity, students explore their thoughts about math in journals and share them with classmates. Then, after the teacher presents the magic triangle puzzle, students test the solution and practice solving the puzzle independently. After students compare making predictions in reading to completing a math problem, they work in groups to create solutions to several magic triangle problems and record their thoughts in their math journals. Then, working in pairs, students evaluate their journal entries to determine what positive attitudes about successful problem solving their comments reveal. Once class responses are recorded, students write and illustrate a way that their work on the magic triangle demonstrated a positive attitude. After completing this writing activity, students return to the initial comments they made about math in their journals and evaluate the change in their perception of the subject. Readwritethink provides several resources to help teachers introduce math journals and engage students in using them as a problem solving activity. This lesson also suggests several extension activities and provides links to web resources on math games and puzzles.
North Carolina Curriculum Alignment
English Language Arts (2004)
Grade 3
- Goal 4: The learner will apply strategies and skills to create oral, written, and visual texts.
- Objective 4.02: Use oral and written language to:
- present information in a sequenced, logical manner.
- discuss.
- sustain conversation on a topic.
- share information and ideas.
- recount or narrate.
- answer open-ended questions.
- report information on a topic.
- explain own learning.
- Objective 4.02: Use oral and written language to:
Grade 4
- Goal 4: The learner will apply strategies and skills to create oral, written, and visual texts.
- Objective 4.02: Use oral and written language to:
- present information and ideas in a clear, concise manner.
- discuss.
- interview.
- solve problems.
- make decisions.
- Objective 4.02: Use oral and written language to:
Grade 5
- Goal 4: The learner will apply strategies and skills to create oral, written, and visual texts.
- Objective 4.02: Use oral and written language to:
- formulate hypotheses.
- evaluate information and ideas.
- present and support arguments.
- influence the thinking of others.
- Objective 4.02: Use oral and written language to:
Mathematics (2004)
Grade 3
- Goal 1: Number and Operations - The learner will model, identify, and compute with whole numbers through 9,999.
- Objective 1.06: Develop flexibility in solving problems by selecting strategies and using mental computation, estimation, calculators or computers, and paper and pencil.
Grade 4
- Goal 1: Number and Operations - The learner will read, write, model, and compute with non-negative rational numbers.
- Objective 1.05: Develop flexibility in solving problems by selecting strategies and using mental computation, estimation, calculators or computers, and paper and pencil.
Grade 5
- Goal 1: Number and Operations - The learner will understand and compute with non-negative rational numbers.
- Objective 1.03: Develop flexibility in solving problems by selecting strategies and using mental computation, estimation, calculators or computers, and paper and pencil.
