Census Lesson

This week I taught a census lesson to my fifth grade math class. This lesson seemed to go very well. I think that the students had many opportunities to learn the concept of what the census is and what it is used for.
I started of the lesson by having the students silently read the textbook's description of a census. The next day the students were shown a power point that reviewed what they read. Then we did a circle activity where 3 students stood inside the circle to represent 3 people in a community. Through this activity we displayed how the community grows, what jobs people have, and what services the community will need. The students seemed to be very engaged in the activity. Next the students worked in pairs to complete workbook pages where they were looking through census results in tables to answer the questions.
The next day, I had a small group of students create a skit depicting a census worker coming to a house full of people and trying to determine what people should be counted. This was a fun way for the students to get involved in the activity. I think that they had a lot of fun participating in it as well! Next the students worked together to find the answers to some workbook pages. This was something that we needed to do again because the students were having trouble remembering to look for answers in both the text and in the charts. Students were forgetting to read the captions and keys to the tables. These skills were very important parts of this lesson.
My host teacher actually video taped this lesson for me. This was very helpful for me because I was able to see what I was doing and how students were reacting. I think that it was very visible that students really did learn and understand the skills I was trying to teach them. Those skills were not only learning about the census, but also being able to look up and interpret information from tables and charts.