Samantha Vaznis - Transfer Lesson

Lesson Title: Rectilinear Figures

Grade: Three
Alignment with Maine Standards:
It meets the common core standards under geometric measurement:
Students can understand concepts of area and relate area to multiplication
and to addition.

CCSS.Math.Content.3.MD.C.7.d
Recognize area as additive. Find areas of rectilinear figures by decomposing
them into non-overlapping rectangles and adding the areas of the nonoverlapping parts, applying this technique to solve real world problems.
Mathematics Goals:
I can: explain what a rectilinear figure is
I can: find the area of a rectilinear figure
I can: write number sentences for my rectangular shapes to help me solve
for the whole area of my rectilinear figure. (Example: 4x3=12 6x3=18
12+18=30 Area=30)
Why this is a transfer lesson: Students will be able to use past knowledge of
how to solve for area and apply it to todays lesson on rectilinear figures.
Students will be given real life problems and examples and asked how they
can solve for them given the knowledge they already know.
Students Prior knowledge and experiences:
Third grade has strategically ability grouped their mathematics students. I
will be teaching to the higher math group for my lesson today. Students have
had several mini lessons on both area and perimeter. We have recently
started working more with just area and are coming to the end of our unit.
The children have had hands-on experience using grid paper, talking with
one another to solve problems and playing card games on area and
perimeter.
Instructional Strategies:
1. Teacher modeling in front of class
2. Student modeling in front of class
3. Thumbs up to check for completed work

4. Turn and talk with a partner

5. Exit slip to check for understanding of learning objectives

Materials:
Large grid paper to display in front of class, individual grid paper for students
to use with clipboards, Everyday Math Journals, the hundreds chart and exit
slips.
Procedures:
1. Hook - get students curious by thinking about a real life example.
Question students and present them with a problem. Get them to think
about what equation they will use to solve the problem. Model
demonstration on the rug. (15-20 minutes)
2. Have student do first two problems on their individual grid papers that
I hand out by themselves. (5-10 minutes)
3. Have them swap papers with a peer sitting next to them and ask them
what they notice about their peers paper in comparison to theirs. (510 minutes)
4. Have them share with the class (5 minutes)
5. Have them go back and finish the last two problems on their worksheet
and repeat the above steps again. (15 minutes)
6. Have them go back to their seat and work on a workbook page in their
everyday math journal to wrap up math workshop (10 minutes)
7. Pass out exit slip to students (5 minutes)

Lesson Plan

Before:
I will introduce todays activity by asking students if they have ever wanted
to build a treehouse or build a space such as a pen for their animal? ( I know
of two boys that are going to be building tree houses with their Dads in the
Spring and several students in the class have pets.) I will then ask ... What is
the most important thing we need to know if we want to build one of these
things? (The answer Ill be looking for is the amount of space I need or how
big I want it to be.) I will have students turn and talk with a partner. For the
partners I see struggling, I will ask questions such as Where are you
planning to put this? How do you know how big or how small it needs to
be? I will then call on partner pairs to share their answers they came up
with. I will then draw a rectilinear figure up on the large grid paper for the
whole class to see. I will tell them that this rectilinear figure represents the
flooring of a pig pen, followed by the question, What equation do you need to

know and use that will allow you to solve for the amount of space within this
pig pen? (Here I am looking for students to say AREA.) Next, I will model and
further scaffold how to break up this shape into several rectangles and find
the area of each before adding them all together to get the final area. Before
I have students get started on their own problems, I will read todays
learning objectives so that the students are aware of what they need to
know.
I gave each student their own individual grid paper with 4 different
rectilinear shapes on them numbered 1 to 6. I will ask students to go about
solving problems one and two only. I will instruct them to put a thumbs up
when they are finished.
During:
Students will be expected to complete problems one and two on their own,
without peer help. I will be walking around the rug observing students as
they work through their problems. I will look for two students who have
divided their rectilinear shapes up differently, so that I can use them as
models for the rest of the class when it comes time to share. In the
meantime, as students are working, I will be going around and asking
students to explain to me how they came up with their number model
sentences. For the students who finish much earlier than the others, I will
instruct them to flip their grid papers over and draw their own pen or
treehouse and have them figure out its area.
After:
When I see all thumbs up and students are done with their first two
problems, I will have them swap their papers with a partner next to them and
will ask them what they notice about their peers work. I will ask them to look
for things they did similarly to them and things they did differently than
them. I will allow five minutes for this. I will then have students raise their
hands to point out some things they noticed. If nobody mentions that some
peers divided up their rectilinear shapes differently, I will propose this to
them as a class. I will ask them if dividing up their shapes differently still
gives them the same answer. If there are two student who used different
shapes I will call them up to the front of the class and have them both model
their problems for us. We will see as a class that the same answer is still
produced.

It is important to note, that once our discussion is done, I will have

students go back and complete problems three and four by
themselves. We will discuss our findings again as a whole class and
then I will be sending students back to their desk to work in their
everyday math journals for the rest of the workshop.

Assessment:
Formative assessment: I will be assessing my students by monitoring their
worksheets they will be doing on the rug as we are working through
problems as a class together. I will also be asking for a show of thumbs up or
thumbs down to determine whether or not students understand the problem
I first modeled for them - the demonstration pig pen model. At the end of the
workshop, I will pass out an exit slip to my students asking them to think of
other real life examples in which area can be applied and used. My hope is
that the students will be able to think about examples other than those used
in class. I will review these exit slips to determine if students have
transferred this knowledge even further.

Accommodations/Modifications:
I will be strategically placing Gressy, Zackaria and Phat to the front of the rug
by me, so that I can assist them with any help they may need. Gressy and
Phat have been absent the last two class periods when we worked on area,
so I want to make sure they understand the difference between area and
perimeter before they start to work on problems one and two. I chose to also
move Zackaria to the front of the room because he can easily get distracted
by others in the class.

Other adults in the room: Mikki VanSummern (classroom mentor teacher)

Lesson Reflection Notes:

I thought todays lesson went quite well. Planning this lesson really
made me think about teaching in a whole new light. When planning my
lessons I always try to think of what I want my students to walk away with
once my lesson is done and over. Keeping transfer in mind this entire time,
has made the planning process that much easier. We always aim to teach our
students why what we are teaching them is so important, so it was great for
them to try to figure it out on their own. Once they did figure it out, a lot of
students found it interesting and I think more purposeful. I heard things such
as I understand what we are doing and I know what I need to use to figure
this out. I was really delighted to hear some of their comments and to know
that what I had spent so much time teaching before had stuck with them.
After reviewing all of the exit slips, I would say 95% of students
understood how they could use area in a different real life situation. They
were really able to think about their learning using transfer. This made me
think that they now understand the concept of area well. In doing this lesson
they did not only need to know how to correctly use it, but they needed to
figure out that it first applied to this new situation that I presented to them.

If I were to redo this lesson I might have students split up into groups
instead of all being gathered on the rug for the entire time. Even though it
did not greatly affect the atmosphere of the room, it was hard to walk around
and observe children as they were working because they were all so close
together. Overall I think this really helped me improve my teaching and was
beneficial to all students.