Today in my Math Mavens program, we opened the book You Can Count on Monsters by Richard Evan Schwartz for the first time. This is a book I bought because I heard glowing reviews of it on NPR. The concept of the book is teaching prime and composite numbers through colorful, geometrical monsters. It is written for any age, from preschool on up, and my students really appreciated it. They had a lot of fun looking at the monsters, spotting the prime monsters hidden inside the composite monsters, and describing what they saw. For example, one said the 20 monster…
Among my students are three brothers in middle school whom I tutor in writing. They are all honors students whose parents hired me as a tutor for enrichment. One activity I’m doing with them is to write a letter to the president. It’s simple enough to do: the White House website has an easy-to-use contact form, like those found on many websites. Or, of course, the letter can be mailed. The activity sounds straightforward: the students should write about an issue that is important to them and send the letter to the president. It is an opportunity to discuss civics…
Scarsdale, NY is a model district in terms of scores and success. They attribute this success to five building blocks in their curriculum: Singapore Math, inquiry approaches to science and social studies, fluency in information technology, and creative arts. Yet they are having to cut teachers and programs due to budget constraints. They contrast this to China, which funded five educators to visit their district. Will Scarsdale have to cut back on their successful programs? Meetings of the Scarsdale Forum are happening during February. Read more at this Patch article.
We hear plenty of talk about teaching and reinforcing basic skills in math. Yes, these are very important, but computation skills aren’t what lead to breakthroughs and new discoveries; new ways of thinking do, right? This young woman exemplifies real creativity in mathematical thinking. I find this so inspiring. Investigating mathematical principles through art: what a concept!
A new app for iPhone/iPod, called BugMath, came out recently. It claims to teach young children math skills based on Singapore Math methods. To experience it, I played my way through the various games, which are fun and have cute graphics. I saw how they can reinforce counting and memory skills. However, I don’t see how they are based on Singapore Math principles, so I think they are using the words “Singapore Math” as a sales gimmick. For these ages, 3-6, the game would use a true Singapore Math approach if it integrated number stories and number bonds. Also, the…
An article published by the Rodel Foundation of Delaware describes how Kuumba Academy took a serious approach to remediating the problem of poor math achievement. They adopted a Singapore Math curriculum, and with it, they gave their teachers “intensive, on-going professional development to deepen teachers’ understanding of math instruction at the elementary level.” The school also implemented parent workshops and a “Bring Your Parent to School Day,” which would help parents and guardians understand the sometimes very different approaches Singapore Math takes. One minor incorrect point the article states is that Singapore Math uses math sprints to strengthen math skills.…
It snowed today – a lot – canceling all my plans and making it a perfect day to get things done at home. So I created the short movie below. I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed making it! This one was taken – and highly modified – from a joke told in Math Jokes 4 Mathy Folks.
How do you explain the concept behind the formula for the lateral surface area of a cylinder, which is 2?rh? I ran into this question when tutoring a student to prepare for the New York State Integrated Algebra Regents exam. (For some reason, this exam contains a lot of geometry.) The lateral surface area is the area of the cylinder’s surface that does not include the circular ends. If you look at the cylinder, it resembles a can. If you imagine it is a can of something, the lateral surface area is what the label covers. So to show the…
The author of Social Media for Trainers and I have been having an interesting debate about the place of higher math education in schools. I had read her book and found it useful, so I looked up her Facebook page. There, under the heading, “Stop teaching math,” she placed a link on her Facebook page to the blog article titled “The Case Against Math.” Of course I found this provocative and clicked over to read the article. While I agree with the thesis of the article – that the way we teach math and value it as a proxy for…
In a training today, I learned about sentence frames. These are helpful for English language learners, and also native speakers, to develop understanding of math concepts by filling in a statement with blanks in it. In researching this further, I came across a wiki that contains a number of sentence frames for various California math standards categorized by grade level. These can be used in any context to fit your math teaching. You can even contribute your own sentences by joining the wiki. Go to the wiki here: http://mathsentenceframes.wikispaces.com/