I feel so alive!

I taught Saturday school again yesterday, and I feel so alive! It is such a refreshing change of pace. I still had the children who need resource services, but I had a nice time. I had only six students. I had so much time to spend with each child. One thing that I was particularly happy about was teaching three of the students how to solve multiplication problems. I gave them a pre-test and the results were dismal. Some of them were only able to complete 2 or 3 of the 20 problems.

I showed them how to solve them using an array. For example, if the problem is 2 x 2, they would draw two boxes with two dots or whatever they wanted to draw in each. I also showed them briefly about math fact families. I explained to them that if they know 5 x 2, then they know 2 x 5. I had them come up to the white board and work it out. I gave each student a problem. Since there were only six students, they all got the concept.

This made me so happy because the CST’s start on Tuesday. This is such a simple skill to teach and learn, but it makes such a big difference. This could possibly make the difference in the number of problems they get right on the CST’s.

Happy to help! I really want to continue to teach Saturday school. It is such a good thing. It makes me feel so alive; like I’m actually making a difference.

So, until next time! Hasta la bye-bye!