Tuesday, June 5, 2007

More Fingers, Please!

As the end of the year approaches, we have final assessments to give. I've mentioned before, I have been really surprised at how much first graders are expected to know. (I have taught middle school for the last 6 years. I'll have to share the story of getting to teach first grade sometime.) Anyway, we are in the midst of a very large math assessment. We break it into parts so it's not quite so treacherous for the children. I can only read the directions for them. I am not allowed to help them on any of the actual computation, but of course I do my best to answer questions as they arise. One little girl raised her hand and when I went to help her, she said, "I can't do this one." It was
12-6= ____. I said, "Why not? It's just like the other ones you already did." And she answered, holding out both hands, "Because I don't have enough fingers!" I asked her if she could think of another way that she could do the problem. She thought for a second, then her face lit up. I could see the light bulb flick on! She said with a huge smile on her face, "Can I use some of yours?!" Now how was I to say "No" to that??!!!
A few minutes later, the little boy next to here was having the same problem on the same question. She leaned over to him and asked, "Do you want to use some of my fingers?"

1 comment:

Unknown said...

That is hysterical! You should send that into Reader's Digest. It sounds like one of their stories.