Problem- based learning: classroom activity in which students acquire new knowledge and skills while working on a complex problem similar to one that might exist in the outside world.
I think a great problem based learning activity to teach children math and life skills would be setting up a way for them to "earn" money and "spend" it. This was one of my favorite projects I ever did in school. In the 3rd grade my teacher gave us all check books and we could earn money and spend it. All while keeping our check books balanced and up to date. We could use our money to buy presents for our parents, treasures for ourselves, or how ever we wanted to spend it. I liked the project so much, I am pretty sure I will try to use some form of this project in my class room.
I think the children would like this project because they will get to be "adults" and save/ spend money. But at the same time, they will be learning to add, subtract, etc. This may be difficult for them but I think they will be motivated due to the real world application.
The obstacles I for see being an issue would be getting enough stuff, that the children would WANT, in order for the project to work. I, also, think coming up with ways for them to earn money would be difficult. It would defiantly take a lot of creative juice. But, overall, I think it would work. We could work on addition and subtraction in everyday lessons- so it would not take a great deal of time out of our every class lessons.
If you wanted to use this lesson with really young children, I think making the money all the same unit would be helpful. Having a checkbook is a really abstract concept since the children can't hold the money in their hands. I'm actually surprised you were doing this already in third grade. For children who are in kindergarten or younger, you could set up a dramatic play experience of grocery shopping and let the children be able to handle the money without the pressure of learning math concepts yet.
ReplyDeleteAs the children get older, you could incorporate more differentiated units of money (like $1 bills, $5 bills, $10 bills instead of all being the same unit) and then have the children do simple math this way.
Once they're a little older you could add larger bills.. then coins.. and finally checkbooks to have the children thinking about the concepts they've been able to practice with hands on now in a more abstract way.
Nice to see you remember certain activities that stood out from your childhood! I remember doing checkbook stuff too and to this day I refer to those memories from grade school whenever I do have to write a check. Using a real world situation like that or using games with kids is a good way to hit two birds with one stone. They learn and have fun learning.
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