Week 2 and 3

The second and third week involved reviewing what had been taught previously in teacher led sessions and teaching the focus children using tens frames (for patterning to ten, 10 - 1, 10 - 2 etc.), finger patterns and subtraction flash cards. The children also continued to solve increasingly difficult subtraction problems using various counters to help them.

During the second week the children were introduced to Butterfly subtraction on the Rainforest Maths site and the Owl subtraction learning object. The children enjoyed the different learning objects however expressed their preference of the Soccer subtraction learning object as it was more exciting.

Again, the computers were set up in the morning prior to school starting and during the morning other children had used them for other purposes so once the Maths session started there was a 5 minute period where the computers had to be set up again for the children to use the learning objects. As the class has only two computers available for this form of activity the 5 target children had to share them. Luckily however, throughout this period I had a student teacher on full control and therefore I was able to teach this group of children daily and could spend the time that would normally be an independent activity with them.

At the end of the third week two of the five children were beginning to image subtraction in their head up to a sum of ten as opposed to counting with materials. One of the children had begun to answer basic facts very confidently and quickly. All of the children are now showing more confidence solving subtraction problems and their attitudes towards subtraction had improved considerably. The children often cheer when it is time to move onto the computer following instruction.

On the Friday of week 3 the children had a session in the computer suite. I introduced the children to the Karate learning object and as it was a more difficult site spent time teaching the children how to use it depending on their ability level with subtraction. This site turned out to be a favourite for the more able children in the following weeks. In the classroom the children often chose to visit this site for enjoyment and as a result, subtraction activities were being practised far more often than had been planned.