Fishy Math

I have been participating in some professional development activities this year involving math.  One of those is a math cohort group that meets about once a month since February in the evenings to improve our math teaching skills.  At our last meeting we were each given a piece of literature and asked to implement it in our classroom to meet the curriculum and expand upon the new skills we have gained.

Here is our book:

We decided to live our story (of course, real piranhas are out of the question, but we had fun imagining!)

We came up with some interesting math understandings:

Ladybug Math

We are working on our adding and subtracting skills and strategies.  We found some funny lady bugs to help us out.  How many dots do you see?

Bugs always make things more fun!

Look at me!  I can use a counting on strategy to solve a math problem...

I also love to sort and count - mancala is a fun game to practice these skills.  Just ask, and I will show you how to play.

Hopscotch Math

Learning number recognition, number relationship and number order can be both physical and fun.  Here is our class doing 'hopscotch math'.

Careful - don't jump on an odd number!

Eating Waffles

To celebrate the end of our shape unit in math, we made waffles.  There were two types - square waffles that could be cut into rectangles or smaller squares, and circular waffles that could be cut into triangles.  But most importantly - they tasted yummy!!

Everyone helped to measure, pour and mix the ingredients (we made our waffles from scratch).

They made the air smell yummy while they cooked on the waffle irons.

Decorating them was almost as much fun as eating.

Hurray for math!

Gingerbread Geometry

We used recyclable materials and a variety of shapes and craft supplies to construct gingerbread houses.  This meets some goals and objectives in our study of geometry and the scientific study of building things.

Those almost look good enough to eat!!!

Snowflake Shapes

For our study of shapes in math, we used different materials, 2D and 3D shapes to make snowflakes to reflect the freshly falling snow of December.  Here are some exemplary examples of student work.  Check out the patterns and shapes they used.

Once, Twice, Thrice!

At the beginning of the month the students set a goal in math to learn to count by 3’s to thirty.  Current research suggests that the reason so many individuals struggle with certain times tables in upper elementary math (like 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, etc.) is due to the lack of practice counting with these numbers in the formative years (think, on the other hand, of how often we encourage young children to count by 2, 5, and 10).  We therefore decided to work on a variety of counting methods.  This month we have chosen  ‘3’.  Take some time each night to make counting by three’s fun and engaging.  Maybe you could count the peas on your dinner plate by three’s…yum!

Pumpkin Math

We are getting into the Halloween spirit in our grade one garden.  Only two more days to go, so we decided to explore the mathematics of pumpkins...

It was obvious which pumpkin was largest....

...but which one was the smallest?  More difficult to tell...

First we looked at circumference:  That's the measurement we get when we go around the outside of a sphere (circle) like a pumpkin.

Then we looked at height - which one was the tallest?

Finally we looked at weight - or how heavy the pumpkins were.  And we found our winner!  Pumpkin #3 was definitely our smallest pumpkin.  Aren't we great detectives!

A pumpkin dot-by-dot is a fun way to learn number sequence.

And then we designed our own jack-o-lanterns (see below).  Vote on the poll on the side to tell us which one is your favorite.  We think they look great!  

Here's to a howling good time with Halloween math!

Pumpkin Contest

Here are the pumpkins we designed using math shape blocks.  Which one is your favorite (vote on the poll on the side!!)

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