In a previous post I explained the rational for my magic elevator animations. Here is the teaching sequence I like to use and the points that I like to bring out:

1. I introduce the magic elevator, explaining how it works. The first animation can be useful for this. If you are playing the animation in front of the class you might like to keep the explanations turned off and explain it yourself.
2. I draw the elevator diagram on the board (using positive and negative numbers for the levels) and ask several questions like: “If the elevator starts on the first basement level and 3 happy people get on the elevator, which level does it go to?”. I make sure to include both happy and sad people and include questions when they get on and off the elevator.
3. I start writing number sentences as I ask each question. For example for the question above I would write ‘-1′ as I say “the elevator starts on the first basement level’ and write ‘+3′ (positive 3) as I say ’3 happy people’ and then I would write an addition symbol as I say ‘get on the elevator’. So far I’ve written  ’-1++3′.  When a student provides the answer I write ‘=+2′. At this stage I never leave out any positive or negative symbols.
4. I stop asking the questions and instead just write new number sentence on the board and ask students to figure out the result by translating the sentence into a magic elevator scenario.  The other animations can be useful at this point to demonstrate how this is done. For some classes it can help to organise the students into groups to work on the number sentences together  (and perhaps even act out the scenario).

Ideally I would do steps 1and 2 towards the end of one lesson and follow with some revision of step 2 and then steps 3 and 4  in the next lesson. But I never go further than these 4 steps without giving students a chance to sleep on the concept.

The magic elevator model goes much further than this. In my next post I’ll explain how I follow on from these steps.