What happened before the lesson?

Where did the idea come from? 

• “Questions Relating to Geomety and Spatial Sense,”  page 116 in The Young Child and Mathematics.

What had the children learned BEFORE this lesson? 
Children had played with a variety of blocks previous to this lesson and had begun talking about their attributes and identifying some of their names. 

What did you plan to do AFTER this lesson?
After more exploration, we were going to investigate the three dimensional shapes by looking at their faces, edges, and vertices, and matching two dimensional photos to the three dimensional buildings.

What's happening during the lesson?

Objective: Children will explore the attributes of new blocks added to the block center, specifically skinny cylinders and rectangular prisms with holes.

Introduction:
I explained that we had new blocks and I wanted students to report back to us what they think about them.(This is a common practice in our classroom and one that we often do when we get new materials).

Procedure:

1. Children work in pairs and explore the new blocks (Other groups are working with different blocks).
2. Child pairs report back to the whole class to “report their findings” as scientists and builders. 
   

What will I do after the lesson?

How did your plans change as you taught this lesson?
Children needed more time to explore the new three dimensional blocks than I anticipated so the lesson I had planned did not occur.   

How would you describe the teaching that occurred using the words on the Continuum of Teaching Behaviors? 
The teacher MODELED behavior and provided cues and prompts as they were building.