Lesson Plans For Primary School

Lesson Plan Ideas For Math With Videos and Drama

It seems as if creativity and eccentricity has no place in a lesson plan for math. One teacher, Ms Kay Toliver, who originally worked in Primary School 72 in East Harlem, New York, has managed to change all that, and her ideas are beginning to spread to other educators, and she has won a Presidential Award for her creative ideas. A math lesson plan, for Ms Toliver, is likely to include songs, costume and drama - and her pupils absolutely love it. When you lesson plan for math, put on your out-of-the-box creative hat and see what you can do.

Here are a few quick suggestions to help you create a dramatic lesson plan for math:

Costumes and alter egos. Teaching geometry? Turn yourself into Pythagoras (with the help of a large bedsheet) and enlist your class to help you discover your theory. Or borrow directly from Ms Toliver and have an Egyptian theme when learning about pyramids and other 3-D solids. 

Use songs and rhymes. If you look online, you can easily find tapes and CDs to help children learn times tables and simple algebra principles. Your lesson plan for math can include a sing-along session or you can just have the CDs and tapes handy for playing in the background or at a listening post. A lesson plan for this will need a bit of preparation on your part creating the codes (hint: you can make an easy invisible ink by dipping a quill pen in potato juice. Iodine solution is used to develop the message).

Not all of us have the dramatic flair of Ms Toliver, and some of us might not have the confidence to dress up as an Egyptian queen or a Greek philosopher. Ms Toliver can claim that "It doesn't bother me to break out into song," but some of us can't carry much of a tune. Does this mean that any lesson plan for math that we can create has to be staid and boring?

It doesn't have to be, if you use a video. It's very easy to make a mistake when using a video in class, whether the video has been slotted into a lesson plan for math or a lesson plan for another subject area. Consistency and Creativity together is Key to Successful lesson plans

Consistency and creativity is key to successfully teaching the class all parts of the curriculum as well as supporting their self esteem. The safety of the consistency and the fun of the creativity make great partners in self esteem building in a classroom.

It also helps if there is an ethos of creativity and consistency in the whole school If one teacher is too creative and another is too structured and the integration of the two things isn't seen as important is can interrupt the success of the approach to building self esteem. Then try the second set of suggestions to help develop creativity.

Wrap ups

Who learned something new today? Felt great

What's our plan for tomorrow? Work hard and have fun together

Variations

* Perform air writing to a soundtrack of funky music. * Air write with elbows, knees, heads or feet instead of index fingers.