Partial Misfire

Since this is a blog about teaching, it will have to have some entries about successes, but also some gaffes. One of my co-teachers on Thursday asked me to teach Friday's math. I said great until I looked at the lesson and said, "shit." It is place value/base ten lesson that uses manipulatives--every ten bits can be exchanged for one skinny, and ten skinnies can be exchanged for one flat. Math is easier with visuals but I think this one has too many moving parts. I prepared the night before, and gathered most of the manipulatives in the morning, but I got busy gathering something else when I came back early from lunch, forgetting my priority which was to get more of the bits from the other 5th grade teacher. So, I wasn't ready, and that was inexcusable. Joanie also indicated that she didn't think I nailed the underlying meaning of the lesson. We didn't get to talk about it at the end of the day so we'll see what she has to say tomorrow. It is not the first impression I wanted to leave with my first math lesson in the class. Thankfully, the day before her answer was "great" when I asked her about my input in a writing lesson we taught in response to their note-taking in the President's address to them, but still.