First Math Test!!

On Wednesday is our first test! First test are always the hardest, for me, because you aren't familiar with how  the teacher is going to make them. Also, this is a math test so it's always scary! 

Probability is confusing. So, when you have to sit down, with no notes and no help from anyone, and take a test it's really intimidating! I'm hoping that I'll do ok on it and not get a horrible grade! This weekend, and week, means study study study!

I'll be going over my notes, homework, and in class activities. We have one more class period before the test so hopefully we'll have a review day! That way I'll have an idea of what exactly all my studying should be focused on. 

So, until Wednesday I'll be crossing my fingers that the test goes good! Or just crossing my fingers that the worst test grade will get dropped from our final grade ;) 

How To Teach 2nd Graders Probability!

So, while working on probability homework and assignments I started thinking about how I wanted to teach my future students probability! It's kind of intimidating to think about though especially since it confuses me how am I suppose to teach this to someone?!

So, I did some searching on how to teach second graders and found this awesome blog! CLICK HERE!

In this blog the teacher describes some of the best ways to teach probability to second graders using skittles! Perfect!

This blog actually made me excited to teach my students about probability! Which was something I didn't think I would be saying anytime soon!

There's also a link for FREE worksheets to print out for the students!

Homework Time!

I started working on the next section of homework and it was MUCH more confusing for me than the first one was! 

I got stuck on the first question and couldn't seem to figure it out! On the online homework we have an option called "help me solve this" it takes you through the homework step-by-step and shows you what to do. So, I figured after doing that I should be able to get it right? Wrong! I was still confused. 

Here's what the problem was that got me: 

A box contains 7 yellow balls and 5 red balls. Two balls are drawn at random from the box. 

a) If the first ball is drawn and not replaced, the probability that two balls will be drawn of different colors is what?

As I was trying to figure this out I remembered that we had done a similar problem in class. So, I pulled out my worksheet from class, looked that and my notes over and was able to solve the problem!! The paper from class was much less confusing than what the computer was trying to tell me! 

This is how I solved it: 

I Actually Understood Math?!

So, today I started doing my online math homework for the first time this semester. It was kind of nice to not have to work on math homework until almost 4 weeks into the semester! 

When I was first getting ready to start working on it I was already dreading it think that it was going to take me forever and I would be so confused! Especially since it's probability homework! 

On the first problem I was opening up the "show an example" to see how the problem was done and I was getting so confused. They were showing all these different formulas and I was thinking that it really didn't need to be so complicated! So, I tried to just do it on my own, with out the formulas, thinking that I would for sure get it wrong and to my surprise it said "Correct!" when I submitted my answer! Yay! 

Even though this is just the first section of homework, and the first section is usually easier, it was still so nice to be able to actually understand math!! Hopefully my good luck continues and the rest of the homework will be just as easy! :) 

Second Class on Probability

For the second class on probability we did an activity that involved a deck of playing cards.

We had a hand out that had a question like: "A card is selected from an ordinary deck of 52 cards. Find the probability that you will draw a red card, a face card, a 10 cards, etc...”

At first I wasn't having difficulty with it until it got to tougher questions such as, "find the probability of not drawing a face card and not a club card." I had no clue what to do for this one! Thankfully the teacher said that these kinds of questions would not be on the test so I could breathe a sigh of relief! However, with the help from my group we were able to solve it.

On the back of the handout was a separate activity called, "pom pom activity." This is one of the questions that it asked: "A box contains three white balls and two colored balls. A ball is drawn at random form the box and not replaced. Then a second ball is drawn from the box. Draw a tree diagram for this experiment and all possible outcomes. Find the probability that the two balls are different colors." So, if you're anything like me you're already confused and have no idea how to solve this! But, it was actually easier than I thought it would be!

Here is a link explaining how to use tree diagrams: CLICK HERE

Here is a game that you can play to learn more about tree diagrams: CLICK HERE

Here is an example of a tree diagram that I found from THIS WEBSITE:

First Class On Probability!

For our first lesson on probability we did an experiment with gold fish, or at least we would have but the goldfish had sadly been thrown away! So, we had to just use our imagination!

Activity Name:” Healthy Fish”

What you need: Colored goldfish in a bag that will represent either healthy or sick fish.

Once all your groups have the goldfish you than need to count and see how many fish you have that are healthy or sick. The green ones are sick and the other colors are healthy fish.

After counting how many fish you have, or in my classes’ case being told how many fish you have, you need to compute different kinds of probabilities. Such as, computing “the probability that a fish in your sample is healthy.”

When teaching and trying to understand probability it is so much easier to actually have some kind of item, like goldfish, that you can actually feel and move around. For me, it makes it so much less confusing! 

CLICK HERE for a great article explaining more about using goldfish for teaching probability.

CLICK HERE  For teaching younger students here is a great online game to help them better understand probability.

Thanks for reading, and check back for more posts about different math concepts! :) 

Welcome To My Blog!

Hey! :) 

My name's Michaelah and I'm a student at Mesa Community College. I'm currently in my last semester there and will be graduating with my Associates in Elementary Education! I hope to one day teach second grade here in Arizona. 

I'm in Math 157 and in this blog I'll be writing about what I'm learning in that class! 

This is my first blog so I'm excited to start blogging and to figure out how it all works!