# Unit 4 Lesson 1 - variables explore teaching tips

**URL:** <https://forum.code.org/t/unit-4-lesson-1-variables-explore-teaching-tips/39952>\
**Category:** Unit and Lesson Discussion\
**Tags:** csp-unit-4-lesson-1\
**Created:** [October 9, 2024, 7:04pm UTC](https://forum.code.org/t/unit-4-lesson-1-variables-explore-teaching-tips/39952 "2024-10-09T19:04:57Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![bijal.patel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/9f8e36/32.png) [@bijal.patel](https://forum.code.org/u/bijal.patel)\
**Post date:** [October 9, 2024, 7:04pm UTC](https://forum.code.org/t/unit-4-lesson-1-variables-explore-teaching-tips/39952/1 "2024-10-09T19:04:57Z")

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Looking for tips on how to keep the students engaged. Every year I teach this lesson I have such a variety of students who either get it right away and are bored and a group that doesn’t understand and immediately disengages. They simply do not have the attention span to listen to me explain these concepts even with a guided note taking sheet.

Anyone else struggling with this? Or has any tips to make this lesson go more smoothly?

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**Author:** ![madeline\_r\_burton](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/forum.code.org/madeline_r_burton/32/5037_2.png) [@madeline\_r\_burton](https://forum.code.org/u/madeline_r_burton)\
**Post date:** [October 10, 2024, 3:42am UTC](https://forum.code.org/t/unit-4-lesson-1-variables-explore-teaching-tips/39952/2 "2024-10-10T03:42:48Z")

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It can be a struggle! Some things that have worked for me:

- Have kids at the front of the room holding the bags. Put them in charge of all manipulation.
- create a story out of the info in the bags. Get th to makeup the variables and treat the story as a sort of Madlib! This diverges a little from the slides, but a little tweaking and I think the could work, or if you have been doing this for a few years you may find that you have the beats without using all the slides and can supplement them with variable names of your own design for a story.
- differentiate the lesson. For the kid that get it… do they need to keep going? Can you do a warm up to gauge their understanding then keep a small group to work through the content while the others work on some practice problems by hand?