Stormin Mormon wrote, on Sat, 01 Nov 2014 08:59:41 -0400:

That sounds like a lot too long to keep students at a desk. Half hour to
45 mins would make more sense. Need to get up and walk around. I don't
think this sounds practical.

As a matter of fact, the teacher (who is brand new to teaching) asked me
for advice on how to keep the kids *engaged* for the entire hour and
forty five minutes.

She, knowing I'm good at googling, asked me to find some math games, and
I also gave her a big bag of extra Halloween chocolate I had bought,
which she is going to use to "reward" the kids when she catches them
being good.

She also knows my strong feeling that math isn't taught correctly, which
is a very long story, but the short of it is that math needs to be taught
from the practical problem standpoint.

For example, I suggested she think from the perspective of two kids
throwing rocks into a lake. What happens, mathematically. Or two kids
trying to kick a soccer ball into a net, while clearing the height of the
other kids. Things like that might keep the kids engaged, if, I
suggested, she *start* a problem that the kids might be interested in,
and then, working backwards, she bring in the math, and, in the end, the
equation and graphs (and, ug, proofs).

I told her to think of all the math that applies to that problem (or any
problem involving two kids trying to figure something out that two kids
would want to figure out), and to teach that way. She told me that is
a *lot* of work, and I did not disagree.

So, that might take years.

In the meantime, there are always the math games we found, which might
help to exercise the kids' bodies, every 30 minutes, for a five-minute
game.