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.

Week One

After initially identifying 5 children that were struggling with the concept of subtraction during Maths sessions. I decided to form them into a group that I would target teach the necessary skills to subtract and use learning objects relating specifically to subtraction to support this.

The first lessons involved teaching subtaction on one hand up to a sum of 5 and this was followed or extended with subtraction with counters up to a sum of 10.

Throughout the first week, the chidren were introduced to subtraction soccer. They played the learning object following a teacher led teaching session. The group were easily able to understand the rules of the activity and enjoyed the game once they were able to control the players using the mouse. The initial difficulty was in sharing the two computers available with the 5 children. Also I had to set the programme up prior to my lesson with the children and during the lesson, other children had selected other games to be playing on. So I had to take the time to reset the programme again.

Taking turns on the computer was OK but was not ideal, the children each took 5 turns before swapping with each other.

The children thoroughly enjoyed this soccer activity.
At the end of the week I collected the following comments from the children...

"Awesome, makes it (subtraction) easy on the computer"
"Helping me by putting more numbers in my head"
"It's good because it shows the answers in pictures"

On the Friday of Week One the whole class had a session in the Computer Suite. I introduced the Subtraction Soccer Learning Object to the class. All children enjoyed the activity and were keen to use it immediately back in the classroom later in the day.