Fear Factors and Divisibility

I'm at a point now where I feel like I know too much about numbers.  The vocabulary of math has really caught me off-guard.  I really don't remember there being this many terms.  I've found that it helps me to say the entire set of words "least common multiple" instead of using the acronym.  I still managed to miss the to LCM questions on this weeks test because I solved for lowest common divisor.  I'm beginning to think a weekly spelling/vocabulary quiz in math class would really help put these terms in to the students long term memory banks.  I have also been thinking about how I could work with an English teacher to create a writing assignment that includes some terminology from math class.  I really like the idea of interdisciplinary exercises, but I'm hoping to become a middle school math teacher so it will be more difficult to use those exercises given that I will only see the students for math.


Back to what we learned this week.  At first I was thinking "ugh factors, multiples, prime, composite, neither", but it really is an important foundation to build an understanding in how numbers are related to one another.  I think showing students how numbers are related takes away some of the "mystery" behind math.  To me Math always made more sense then classes like Art or English.  There was always a right answer, and there were steps to get to that answer.  With Art there were different interpretations of what was being presented and in English class, especially creative writing, I could never figure out what the teacher actually wanted.  I knew technically what should be correct, and that there would be a certain length requirement, but I would still do poorly because I wasn't creative enough or my stories were just boring.  At least with math it's very black and white, it's right or wrong.

More then anything I think this weeks lesson reinforces the importance of practice.  Even after taking a pre-test and the regular test twice, I still managed to incorrect identify the LCM.  Obviously with just one week per concept there's not going to be the time to spend as much time covering the material over and over like the case would be in a elementary school classroom.  I get overwhelmed when I think about how much information needs to be covered in classrooms each year, but I also try to remember the program we're in covers k-8 and we'll have a lot more time in our classrooms.