Leslie Payne

Math Lesson Analysis

This math lesson was based on the core standard 5.NBT.7 Add, subtract, multiply,
and divide decimals to hundredths, using concreted models or drawing and strategies
based on place value, properties of operations, and/ or the relationship between addition
and subtraction; relate the strategy to a written method and explain the reasoning used.
This particular math lesson focused on adding decimals to the hundredths place value
using the commutative, associative, and identity properties of addition. Student had been
working on adding decimals for this chapter, but this was the first lesson they had on
adding using the properties of addition.
To prepare for this lesson I reviewed the math concepts the students had been
working on up to this lesson. Students had been working on estimating, and adding
decimals so I knew I needed to review those concepts with them and add to them. I
reviewed some of the slides from My Math that I wanted to use, and then I also wanted to
create a hands on activity for them that would be more engaging than me just teaching
them about the properties of addition. I looked on pinterest searching for ideas and found
the idea to make a foldable for the students and decided that would be a great activity for
them to do and also a great reference for them to have as they worked on their
assignment. I created a foldable the night before the lesson, so that students would have
an example of how their foldable should look, and what they should put in them. I also
had to prepare a foldable for one of my students with ADD that was prefilled and she
could just fill in the blanks that she was missing. I was comfortable with showing
students how to add decimals, but I did spend some extra time researching examples of
the addition properties so that I could better teach them to the students.

This was one of the best lessons that I have prepared and taught, and was very
happy with the way it went. I think a few of the strengths of the lesson were the foldable,
the real world connections I made for students, and my modeling and teacher talk. The
foldable was a great activity that was engaging for the students, and it was very helpful,
Ive seen many students since this lesson pull out the foldable to help them. The first
activity into the lesson that I had the students do was try to add up a bunch of larger
numbers mentally. It was very hard for the majority of the students, but then I modeled to
them that if I rearranged (commutative property) the order the numbers were in then I
could group them up (associative property) and add them mentally without any problem.
This was a great real world connection for students to see how we use these properties
every day. I modeled the examples very well and used consistent teacher talk to explain
each step I took. I applied students previous knowledge to help build their background
knowledge on these properties and how we add decimals, and it really helped students
succeed in this assignment.
Some of my weaknesses from this lesson had to do with the vocabulary words
and the addition properties. I noticed a few students were struggling understanding the
properties, and as we were creating the foldable I really wished that I had changed a few
things so that students would understand the properties better. I needed to create a slide or
even just a paper that was posted for students to see the properties, the definition, and an
example of what they were, and then have students create the foldable. I think that was
one the biggest weaknesses of the lesson and would have helped create a more concrete
understanding of the properties, but because I didnt do that I knew I needed to spend

extra time reviewing and practicing those terms and so we have done that the past few
lessons.
The only changes I had made from the original lesson plan were the order I did
the foldable in and timing for each section of the lesson. I had originally wanted to create
the foldable after I modeled a few problems for the students but then decided that it
would be better to make the foldable after I modeled for the students how to group the
large group of numbers and add them. I had also assumed it would take about 20 minutes
to create our foldable, it actually took 40 minutes, which was not what I had planned, and
that resulted in having to speed up the rest of the lesson. The concepts were grasped
though and based on their assessments I dont think speeding up other portions of the
lesson negatively impacted any of the students.
The types of assessments I used throughout this lesson were discussions, group
work, a foldable, math worksheet, and a homework check. Throughout the discussions I
would ask students why, how, and what questions to check for their understanding, and I
was able to determine whether or not they understood the concept. As students worked in
groups I wandered around the classroom listening to conversations and observing the
students as they worked together to make sure they understood the task and how to
complete it. The foldable showed me the property, the definition in the students own
words, and then an example they created of that property. The homework check also
shows me the scores students received on their homework that covered this lesson. Only
one student missed 3 questions on their homework check, so I was very happy with the
students performance on this assessment.

Differentiation for math has always seemed to be something that I struggle with.
For this lesson I wanted to make sure I was meeting the needs of all my students and
planned several ways to meet their needs. There is one ADHD student in the class who
also has a learning disability and struggles. To meet her needs I made a prefilled foldable
that she only needed to fill in the blanks for. For my visual learners and kinesthetic
learners I had them participate in the real world problem. Students participated in group
work which was very helpful for my struggling students to receive the help from their
peers. I also pulled students up to front of the class for some extra-individualized
instruction after whole group instruction. For my high level learners we made some
connections to other math properties in multiplication and division. They also had the
chance to create their own real world problem involving one of the properties we
discussed.
There were very few unexpected happenings during this lesson. The only issue I
had was with the powerpoint presentation on Connect Ed. It logged me out while we
were making the foldable and then I had to refresh the presentation, which didnt work. I
exited out of the program and restarted it and then it was fine. The transition time during
this section was a bit longer for the students and they did get chattier, but it wasnt ever
out of control.
This lesson overall was great and I think it went really well. I love being in the
classroom more than once a week because I can continue to build off of the lessons that I
teacher, rather than just try to do so once a week. It just runs much smoother when you
are there every day, you know what the students are learning, because you are teaching it
and your lesson planning is much easier. I feel that this lesson included great

differentiation, examples, connections, and assessments. It was a great way to use the my
math program, but also include some different strategies to make sure that every student
was able to understand the addition properties and how to use them as we add decimals.