So, ever since I have been teaching upper elementary (4th - 6th), students have had a problem with subtraction with regrouping. I think it's psychological, a repulsion to "taking away." Last year, I started calling it the "subtraction monster," and it did make the students more aware of the problem, rather than deliberately give the wrong answer. On the day after the last day of school this past summer, I had this idea for a classroom theme. They could overcome their "monsters" (not just the subtraction monster) - anything that kept them from being successful in school. It could be the lack of focus monster, the chatty monster, the forgot-my-name monster. The way they would do this would be to be a superhero. They would need to identify their superpower, something that they are good at, that gives them confidence and power. And with this power, they would be strong enough to "tame" their monsters. The goal for the year is to identify their monsters and "tame" them, to strengthen their power and give them more confidence to tame their monsters.
So that's the plan.
Today, I had my first pencil eraser throw of the year. This kind of thing was a big problem with this same set of kids last year (looping with them). So, I had the boys identify the monster that they had to "tame" - the wasting school supply monster and the playing around monster. I hope this works!
(Names blacked out)
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