Psrn Problem Solving Help. Please!

[Guest]

Hi everyone,

 

I am an NQT teaching Reception and I am having an observation by my mentor tomorrow in PRSN. This week we have been focusing on problem solving but I am hoping that you could inspire me with some fresh ideas. I was wanting an exciting/interesting/engaging problem solving activity for the carpet session and then I thought it may be nice for me to have a focus group outside for some problem solving outdoors.

 

Any ideas at all would be REALLY appreciated.

 

Thank you so much in advance.

 

Sarah x

[ketch]

What about working together to make 2d shapes outside woth their bodies e.g. lying down each being a side. Or how many bricks make he tallest safest tower, estimate first? Making numbers out of natual materials? I will keep thinking

K x

[Guest]

Thank you. I was thinking for my input about introducing them to counting in two's. Then I thought I could say postman Pat is delivering letters to houses 2,4,6 what house will he deliver to next? Any thoughts on other questions I could ask them??

[Guest]

Last week we explained to the children that as it was raining we needed to dry their wellies on newspaper - how many wellies can you fit on a page?. They worked really hard; they worked out that if they turned the wellies around they could fit more on - to record it they drew around wellies and printed wellie prints on the paper, one child drew around their feet and wrote the numbers in them!

 

We were also given some frogspawn last week so I put a green ping pong ball into a tall jug and explained that they needed to get the frog out without touching the ball or the jug. They came out with ideas like - give him some apples and entice him out - lots of great discussion then they worked out they needed water to get him out. All good fun.

 

Good luck

Nicky

[Guest]

I like the idea of trying to get something out of a jug without touching it - I could do that as my outdoor activity. Would this meet the problem solving for shape space and measures??

[Guest]

We have been focussing on money this week and the children had a given time to collect 2p coins spread around the outdoor classroom. They made them into 2p worms and had to say how much their worm was worth. They then joined up with someone else to put their worms together.Finding the total( this was with a group of more able who are quite confident at counting in 2's) Or you could give them the challenge of making a 2p worm a 4p worm etc.

[finleysmaid]

I like the idea of trying to get something out of a jug without touching it - I could do that as my outdoor activity. Would this meet the problem solving for shape space and measures??

if your going to do this activity i would recommend a book called mr. archimedes bath...fab for discussions on water displacement

[Guest]

Just to let you know... I had my observation today and I got good with outstanding features - she said it was really close to being outstanding (if I had linked the numbers going up in 2's on streets in real life it would have been outstanding!)

 

My lesson:

I said that the frogs hop were too big so he always missed one and jumped in 2's - got the chn to count along with his jumps. Told the chn that if they find it tricky we can count up each number and whisper every other one (1 2 3 4 5 6). Then showed the chn houses numbered 2 4 and asked them how we could work out what the next number was that postman pat would post to. Then asked them to work out a number that he would post to that is more than 10 and which house number would he NOT deliver to.

 

Sent the children off to tables to do the following activities at tables:

• 10 sheep, 2 sheep can go in each pen. How many pens are needed?
  
• 8 spacement, 2 spacemen can fit in each rocket. How many rockets are needed?
  
• 10 socks, how many pairs?
  
• 6 animals and 3 fields, each animal needs a friend - how can we sort them into fields?
  
• 4 animals and 2 fields, each animals needs a friend - how can we sort them into fields?
  

Edited March 22, 2012 by Guest

[lashes2508]

well done sarah :1b

[Susan]

Well done.