Molly Raiche
C&I 332
Field Exercise #2
December 3, 2001
Lesson:  Elapsed Time
Time: 30 minutes
Grade Level: 3rd
Materials:  David Wiesner’s Tuesday, The Flight of the Bumblebee.

Objectives: 1) The students will learn that time is based on intervals of sixty.
                    2) The students will learn to figure the amount of time that passes during a
                        given interval.
Procedure:

1)  Start the lesson by “reading” the picture book, Tuesday, to the students.  Play The Flight of the Bumblebee while showing the book to the class.  If practiced, the pages in the adventure book will turn with the change of tempo in the music.  When done correctly, book and music end simultaneously.

2. Discuss the pictures with the students.  Ask questions such as “what happened?”  “Can it happen?”

3. Bring times in book to the attention of students.  Write times named in book on board (8:00 p.m., 11:21 p.m., and 4:38 a.m.)  “If we are in bed by 11:21, how do we know this couldn't happen?”

4. Challenge students to figure the duration of time that the frogs were flying without being seen (8:00-11:21).  Take suggestions, work together as a class, monitoring each student's interest, understanding, and participation.  Demonstrate with either clock manipulatives or a drawing of a clock on the board.  If students have difficulty with telling time, use two different clocks, one for hours and the other for minutes.  How much time was in between when the frogs flew by the man and when the dog saw the frogs?  How long was the entire flight of the frogs?

Evaluation:
Write the following question on the board to check for students’ understanding
and application of the concept.  Dominique ordered a pizza at 6:30 and it arrived at 7:18 and was finished by 8:01.  How long did it take the pizza to be delivered?  How long did it take Dominique to eat?  Have students work on problem alone while circulating to help and check for understanding.  Each student should be able to answer all three questions correctly.  If students are not able to, take time to work with them and assimilate elapsed time to subtraction.  If needed, show that time is just like place value except instead of a ones place, tens place, hundreds, etc., the places are ones, sixties (minutes), and sixty sixties (hours).  Use manipulatives and a groups-of approach to show that, instead of grouping by ten, time groups by sixty.

Extension:
 If time allows, encourage students to write an adventure story based on time.



Summary

            I was very excited to teach this lesson to my third graders.  However, I was nervous for a few reasons.  Mrs. Hughes rarely teaches in front of the classroom.  Math is not taught in our classroom every day.  Mrs. Hughes asked that I teach elapsed time before assessing the children and their skills of telling time.  Our third grade class is very hard to manage, with nine out of the fifteen students displaying behavior difficulties every day.
            After I had planned out the lesson, Mrs. Hughes called me on the Monday and told me that she taught a lesson that day on time.  She said that some of them could tell time and others were completely lost.  My lesson didn't necessarily require the students to be able to tell time from a clock, rather they should understand that time is based on intervals of sixty.  So, given the times in the book, we only needed to figure out the duration in between given times, not how to show the times on a clock.  However, using pictures of clocks usually helps the students to visually see how much time elapses over a given interval.
            My supervisor observed me teaching this lesson.  That factor raised my nerves a little bit.  When it was time to start, I had a student start the CD player.  Before I started, I should have gathered the students on the rug so it was easy for them to see the book.  It was important for all the students to see because I did not read the few words in the book.  Throughout the reading, I struggled with facing the book at a position that every student could see.  The music went fast.  After the first time through with the music, I showed the book again and read the words in the book to the class.  I think if I would have had the students on the rug, I would have read the book two times with the music.  More students would have remembered the times listed in the book.
            When we went into the discussion of the book: remembering the times and what happened at those times, some of the students were very active.  Others were either not participating or talking to one another.  I was frustrated because at this time, Mrs. Hughes was in the back of the room with my supervisor talking.  Their noise provoked the students to begin talking to each other.  I felt like I was teaching the volunteer in the room because she was the only one giving me eye contact and paying attention.  I wish my supervisor and teacher would have helped me require attentive participation in the lesson.  If I was re-teaching this lesson, I would implement some type of management strategy.  Perhaps, requiring that each student participate in the discussion at least once.  I could issue a reward (Mrs. Hughes uses paper money for rewards) for each time a student participates.
            I'm glad I chose to put the problems on the board at the end of the lesson rather than handing out a worksheet.  Placing the problem on the board encouraged questions and a group effort at trying to solve it.  The students helped each other by answering each others' questions and answering my questions aloud.  If I were to reteach this lesson, I would require the third graders to complete the extension activity.  Mrs. Hughes' class write often and like to create stories.  I think if they were required to include time in their story, the application of figuring the amount of time that elapsed in their stories would make the concept more real to them.
            My assessments of the students ended up to be formative rather than summative.  Instead of having the children write the answers on a piece of paper, we went through the problem on the board and answered them aloud.  After figuring the problem, we broke into small groups.  Mrs. Hughes worked with one group, my supervisor worked with another, the volunteer worked with one, and I worked with the last one.  So, although I could sort of gather that some of the students were understanding more than others throughout the lesson, it was easier to teach the concepts to the individuals in my small group.  Of my five students, three of them completely understood the concept, one would not cooperate and the fifth of my students put forth much effort to understand my teaching.
            In conclusion, I really liked this lesson plan when writing it.  I still like it for the integration of literature, music, and writing.  I like the lesson for the class involvement aspect and also for the creative application of elapsed time.  I look forward to using this lesson plan in the future.  I think the structure of it allows the teacher to take it to different lesson for diverse learners.