Monday, June 9, 2014

Rainy Day Activity - Make Three Equal Groups

Most of Japan is in the midst in the rainy season. Rainy season is sandwiched in between spring and summer.

Today was a rainy day. I dread rainy days; especially when I am on recess duty. The students seem especially energetic on rainy days, and not having a chance to run around outside can cause some problems.

Right in the middle of an outdoor recess today it started raining enough so that we had to come inside. When all the students were in, I began sorting them into three lines. The students were being slow and two of the lines were much longer than the third.




Having seen this before, and knowing that it would take the rest of the recess period to get them lined up, I made a snap decision and called out, "Stop!"

"Divide yourselves into three equal groups."

From there the students spent the next five minutes trying to figure it out. It was interesting to see which students did not follow directions correctly and started making groups of three. There were some students who were not engaged, and some who were confused (I think confusion is a good thing for a little while), but it was a good problem for a rainy day.

It was interesting to see some of the older students who knew how to solve the problem try to line up the students to make the groups.

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