Family Math is Fun!

In my school district, we are all about reading.  Now, don't get me wrong.  I, too, truly value reading and have always loved reading to my kids.  However, in my last few years as a math coach, I find myself constantly thinking, "What about math?"  So one of my goals this year is to foster making math more visible in our schools and in our community.

My colleagues and I brainstormed ways to reach out to our parent community.  Research shows that if we want our children to grow a love of math, then we need to make math fun at home.  We decided to start by creating monthly math challenges for families to tackle together.

We shared this PBS article - Instill a Love of Math - with parents.  Then we announced that each month we would offer some themed math questions for four grade bands:  Kindergarten, 1-2, 3-4, and 5-6.  We challenged families to do the math together and then double challenged them to notice math in a typical day and make it come alive for their children.

When brainstorming the first round of questions, sports instantly came to mind.  It was important that the questions be open ended with multiple solutions.  I found myself not only thinking hard about sports scenarios for each developmental level, but for the Grade 5-6 band I even did some research on current ticket prices to make this math truly real life.

Here are our sports related math challenges for families.

This is just one of our ideas to promote the love of math with families.  I am so excited to hear feedback from parents and students.  It's all about the little things we do to make a difference in our learners' lives.

What do you do to foster the love of math?  Share your ideas.  We all learn from each other.

The Power of Words - in Math

This post continues the series on building a math community.  I remember one of my first experiences with geometry as a child.  For weeks I felt like the teacher was talking in a foreign language.  Then finally I made a connection and thought, "Oh!  That's what a plane is."  Math vocabulary is an instrumental part of strengthening our math learning.

Our math students hear "math words" for maybe an hour each day, that isolated time of math instruction.  It's no secret that we need to hear a new word many times before we start to make it part of our own vocabulary.  So how can we help learners make meaning of these words and better yet, make these words become part of our learners' math discussions?  It's this natural use of math vocabulary that strengthens students' ability to communicate their thinking and speak with precision.

Ideas to build mathematicians' vocabulary:

• Model vocabulary and highlight it in your math anchor charts.  The anchor chart serves as a visual scaffold for learners.
  
• Math discussions -
• Model using math words that connect to the lesson.
• Pose questions using math vocabulary.
• When a learner shares an idea, ask, "Who can restate this idea using a math word?"
• Use multiple representations:  Frayer Models, word banks, or have students build models in their math notebooks.
• When students write about math, encourage them to revise adding math words.

Granite School District has created math vocabulary cards that offer a comprehensive way to foster the growth of math vocabulary. The cards are available Kindergarten through Grade 6 with an additional secondary section of word cards. Plus, there are sets in Spanish, French, and Chinese. They are perfect for a Math Word Wall.  Each card consists of three sections:

• Section 1 is only the word.
• Section 2 is the word with a visual representation.
• Section 3 is the word, the visual representation, and the definition.

Some other resources to support the development of math vocabulary include the following:

• Have a math dictionary available for learners.  Math Dictionary: Homework Help for Families is very user friendly for students with clear examples to connect to.
  

• An interactive math dictionary:   http://www.amathsdictionaryforkids.com/dictionary.html  This site not only models the math term, but also gives the user the opportunity to test out its meaning.

What are some strategies you use to promote the growth of your mathematicans' math vocabulary? Share your ideas.  We all learn from each other.