Math can become quite routine and repetitive with the teacher teaching and the students just following along. So, I try my best to vary the activities in each lesson as much as I can. So, today I brought in math manipulatives – unifex cubes – to begin the lesson. I thought it was important to do this at the beginning of the lesson because then I can capture the students’ attention right from the start. Although I had wanted each group to have their own set of cubes, I had to change this because of time limits. So instead, I had students come to the front to manipulate the cubes. For math, I really have been trying to watch my voice and wait time because I feel these make a huge difference for students’ understanding of the new concepts I am introducing. So, varying my expression and repeating key terms and processes of solving for the mean, for example. Also, with wait time, I do say, “take a minute to think about it,” and sometimes I even have said “Come on, I should see more hands up then that.” This usually works, but if it does not, I have now begun to ask students myself to answer. I would like to keep working on my voice – especially experimenting with different tones and recognizing what works best when. For example, switching to a more softer tone when I have been using a stronger tone in order to get students’ attention. In a sense, sort of surprising the students with a completely different tone so they know something is about to change and I need their attention.