Bird Brain? No way!

Estimate how many birds are in this picture!

What a great group of students we have in our class! I have never met a more awesome collection of personalities in my life. I can't imagine asking any other group of adults to flap around a room like a bunch of birds...and have them respond with such a large amount of enthusiasm. 

Our team teaching project was focused on developing number sense though estimation. I feel as though we accomplished what we set out to do. The class was very responsive and they came up with great estimations. The hardest part was keeping track of time. We felt like our activity lasted much longer than it was in reality. I guess getting a sense of time while teaching comes with practice.

Also, thinking back, it would have been helpful to have a more concrete example instead of just the picture of the birds (see above). Maybe a jar of jelly beans or package of straws. We could have had both and discussed which one was easier to estimate. Regardless I think it turned out okay and I loved doing the activity while interacting with the class. 

I also want to say a word about the course in general. I felt as though the atmosphere of the class was amazing and unbelievably comfortable. The course was actually nothing like I expected. I was under the impression that we would learn the content that we need to teach in the future but what I actually came away with is a view of the bigger picture. I know HOW to teach not WHAT exactly to teach. The content is all in the curriculum guides but the things we have learned this semester are not. 

Excellent class + Excellent Professor = Happy Sarah :)