5th Grade Classes: What developmental differences do you see in the children in the classroom?

This week, I have been working with both 5th grade classes in a title 1 school; working with Miss L and Mrs S.  I've had a group of students from each class, who are having difficulty in geometry.  I've been able to work with 6-8 students from Miss L's class, and then 7 students from Mrs. S's class.  The rest of the students are doing very well, and are retaining the information that they have learned.  The students in my group, are having a difficult time remembering the terms, definitions, and simple shapes.  We have been reviewing these concepts every day this week.

These particular students took a review geometry test at the beginning of the year, and completely bombed the test.  It should have been a review from 4th grade, but these students have really struggled.  I've been working with them for a total of an hour each day, M-F, teaching them the basics of geometry.  They are allowed to use rulers to help them with their homework and tests in geometry, which for every child, was extremely useful.  We discussed angles (acute, right, obtuse) as well as degrees of angles.  They already knew that a triangle has 180*, so I helped them find one angle, "x," when they knew the other 2 angles.  We also discussed the definitions of equilateral, isosceles, and scalene sides, and classified triangles into categories of sides and angles.  We then discussed the definitions and shapes of quadrilaterals, polygons, parallelograms, squares, rectangles, rhombus, and trapezoids.  We had to go over what "parallel" means, as well as "congruent."  I realized that the main reason some of these kids are putting down the wrong answers, is because many of them don't understand the problem.  They know most of the definitions, and what polygons are, but when it comes to a test problem, they are having trouble understanding what they are being asked to do.  Some students needed to review what the terms meant, and others knew what they meant, but would be confused by the question.  I tried to relate terms like "quad," "parallel," and "polygons" into life situations (for example, a car has quad number of tires, and is a hallway's walls parallel?), hoping that they would make the connection and have an easier time remembering what the terms mean.  I'm hoping they do very well on their retake geometry test today, because I have really tried to help these kids learn the information frontwards and backwards!  I used a lot of repetition, because I think this age group needs to hear, see, and touch things over and over for the information to sink in.  I know that not all of these kids are going to be visual learners, or auditory, or kinesthetic.  I've been having them work with plastic shapes so that they are able to hold them in their hands, see them, and listen to what I am teaching them.  My objective is to combine each of these learning styles into a lesson, so that each child is benefiting as much as possible from what I'm trying to teach them; and have been combining these three learning styles into teaching them about shapes.  At their age, they need to be able to see the shape, in order to come to a conclusion about the angles, sides, and terminology.  I even had them showing me what parallel, acute, obtuse, and right means by using their arms.  My hope is, that they will read these words on a test or in their homework, and remember doing the actions.

I was also able to go out with the kids at recess, and observe what it was like from a teacher's point of view.  I think it's very important for the kids to have this time to play, get some of their wiggles out, and take a break from learning.  I mostly taught in the mornings when the students arrived at school, but also was able to see how they learned after recess on Thursday.  I feel like these breaks from learning are just as important as classroom time is.

The children are mostly well behaved, and are very respectful.  They listen and are eager to please, and are very good at finding things that need to be done.  These kids are so thoughtful and sweet.  The girls would usually compliment me on the skirt I was wearing, and the boys would be competitive, trying to answer the questions the fastest.  Their personalities come through in their learning, and I was able to use that in my examples as well as saying "the first person to touch their ear can answer my question," etc.

On a side note, Miss L has the most fantastic classroom decor!  Her entire classroom is Harry Potter themed, and now I know what I want my classroom to look like.  I can tell just from her classroom, she has a passion for reading, and I think that shows in the way that she teaches.  They are able to read a book as a class, and most of the children really enjoy it.  I think some of the others aren't as engaged because they're simply not as interested in the book.  

I've really enjoyed being in the classroom, observing and teaching these children.  They are so full of life and so fun to be around.  The kids are the reason that am choosing to be a teacher.  Being able to interact with them, and learning and teaching from both sides, is an awesome thing to be a part of.