Week 12 - Hidden Rods Lesson Plan

Class: Fifth Grade Mathematics

Instructor: Marc Vogel

Unit: Geometry

Lesson: Click here to access the lesson plan and the supporting materials.

Time: 65 minutes

By completing this lesson, students will be able to use a coordinate system of ordered pairs of numbers, recognize the importance of the sequence of the numbers in an ordered pair, and develop strategic thinking skills. Thus, this lesson is excellent for a class that is either starting to learn about graphing ordered pairs or for a class that is already in the process of learning about how to graph ordered pairs.

The most important thing about this lesson is that it is fun. The students will feel as if they are playing the game called Battleship. Thus, a teacher could use this game to get students to learn about plotting ordered pairs on a coordinate plane without the students even realizing that they are learning. Thus, the chances of getting students engaged in the learning experience are very high if this lesson is the one being implemented.

Another aspect of this lesson that I particularly like is the fact that students will need to use different strategies in order to "win". This is why I included questions that probe the students to think about and discuss their strategies.

Also, I practiced playing this game with my girlfriend. The game went smoothly, and all indications were, that this lesson would be an effective lesson to use with students.