Continuing the MEP programme, today was working with the more than and less than signs.
I went into the lesson in the same manner as the previous lesson about odds and evens ....completely spontaneously without a pre-prepared teaching plan.
The reason being, as again this is a whole new concept for Khadeeja, and I felt that making a plan wouldn't really work, as I need to bounce off whether I can see if she is understanding or not.....meaning I need to improvise in the moment to simplify things if it is going over her head, or no need to waste time if she gets it straight away.
The whole lesson from start to end probably took only around 20 minutes.
The sign flash cards below were
DOWNLOADED from the MEP site. I used these together with the small hand-held white board, and unifix cubes.
I explained the signs mean more than, and less than when we are doing maths. I explained that it is a quicker way of writing "more than" or "less than" and showed her on the board the time difference to write as words or sign.
She wasn't understanding which sign meant what, her face was completely puzzled, and so I needed to think quickly how to present the information in a way she would understand and remember inshallah....and so alhamdulillah, I devised a little rhyme!!!
To help Khadeeja (and also myself!!!!!) remember which sign meant what, I explained that the sign which points to the Left means less than, and the sign which points to the right, means more than. To help remember this I came up with
"L" is for Left, and Left is Less!
So by being able to identify which sign means less, the remaining symbol has to mean more!
As a quick game, I then asked her to raise her right hand if I said more than, and raise her left hand if I said Less than.
I wrote the small rhyme on the board to refer to if she forgot, and placed the unifix cubes on the board, which she then had to put the correct flash card sign in the middle, before writing the sum beneath.
(she was getting confused as to which way the sign was pointing to - she kept muddling the direction thinking the open end was the way it was pointing, so I just scribbled a dot with a whiteboard pen (as they are laminated) on the point of each sign to show this is the direction it is pointing.
We did a few more of these examples, and then I asked Khadeeja to choose her own numbers to work with, before finally I wrote 3 sets of numbers, which she had to simply draw in the correct symbol. (I drew the symbols for her to refer to).
Alhamdulillah she understood the lesson - however I think throughout this week I will probably need to do alot of revision work to ensure she does not forget....I think this is definitely something which can be easily forgotten!!!!! (I know with out realising "Left is Less" I wouldn't be able to remember this myself!)
The lesson goes something like this.....
