Hello all, I teach resource room Math to special education students. These students are some of the best kinesthetic (hands-on) learners I have ever seen. The problem is they have difficulty when you take that away and make them do book work.
My ultimate goal for this project is to allow students to do math subjects like conversions, ratios, area, perimeter, volume, and proportions with a hands-on approach.
This will allow my students to think, plan, and build their way through math and discover that it is not just in books, but in their everyday life.
My Project
My students will take these LEGOS and begin by sorting them out. We will do measurements and read blueprints of our new school. We will work on conversions and how to price out and order parts we need. Lastly, these students will have an example of something they did with math. They will be able to walk through the school and see their creation and be able to say "I built that!"
My goal for my class is for the students to work their way from concept to completion of a scale model of our entire new school out of LEGO bricks!
With this project I plan to make lesson plans around perimeter, area, volume, conversions, ratios and proportions, all while giving the students a chance to do hands-on work. These students will be able to go out and measure areas of our school for the build and even look at plans from the architects. Then, they will figure out how to convert the information into the quantity and type of LEGO bricks that are required.
We will take any type of LEGO bricks, new or used. We are currently working with the life skills classes for them to separate (Fine Motor/ Gross Motor skills) the LEGO bricks. Then, we are getting the measurements of the various areas around the school to start our build. Overall, this project will most likely take a couple of years to complete, but hey, you have to start somewhere!
We will have a running video of the measuring and building process. This will allow us to incorporate technology concepts into the build, with an ultimate goal of creating a time-lapse video of our progress. This video will highlight how dedicated and determined these students are to finish this project.
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