Birthday math lesson

I taught my first math lesson yesterday on polygons. It made me a little nervous that I was going to teach it on my birthday. It took a ton of time to plan for since I've never taught a math lesson before. I knew that it could either make or break my day as my supervisor was going to be watching as well. I unfortunately received little to no help in planning my lesson from the teacher. I was just told that I would teach on polygons. Well -- the math lesson actually was fantastic. :) I first read a book called The Greedy Triangle, which the kids loved and participated when I prompted them. I then did a couple activities with thinking about the characteristics/properties of polygons (closed figure, at least 3 sides, etc), and then they got the opportunity to create polygons using straws and twist ties, and then geoboards. It was pretty fun and after a while I forgot my supervisor was even there. :) He raved about it, so it was a good start to my day!!

Here are some pictures- aren't the kids so cute!

Reading The Greedy Triangle:


After writing the properties of a polygon and talking about trapezoids:


Helping to create polygons with geoboards:


Creating polygons out of straws: