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My Favorites, December 2020

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Listen, there’s a lot to hate about Education right now. I’m less effective on video-conference than I am in real-life, most of the tools that make me effective depend on in-person teaching, there’s no end in sight for distance-learning.

But this blog has always been about sharing my process (for better or worse) and hoping that y’all feel some solidarity, encouragement, or relief knowing that you’re not the only one.

So here are a few of my favorite ways to try and make Math Club meaningful, split up by grade level.

Secondary folks, read along anyway. Our teammates in K-5 have much to teach us.

Kinder

Yeah, I have a 25 minute Math Club for 5 and 6-year-olds, once per week. It’s a hot mess of shouting, stuffed animals, and enthusiasm, and I was three weeks into it before the other Kinder teachers said, “Wait, you’re not using the Mute All button? The hell’s wrong with you?”

Each week, we do a combination of writing numbers, saying numbers, and showing numbers on our fingers. I’ll usually go through a few of these sections, changing up which slides I do each week. This week, I had them responding on whiteboards (which required notifying parents days in advance, “Make sure your student has whiteboard, marker, and eraser for Thursday’s Math Club.”)

First Grade

The first grade teachers wisely told me, “We aren’t thinking of them as first graders, we are thinking of them as third trimester kindergarteners, since they missed that critical instruction when we shut down on March 13th.”

To that end, my groups of first graders are equal parts delightful, loud, emphatic, and motivated. After teaching secondary for so long, I had forgotten that students begin attending school with a love of learning, even though many of them were squished into submission by the time they walked through my classroom door in the 8th grade.

I have some feelings about the culture of compliance in K-12 education, if you couldn’t tell.

More on that later.1

First graders, like kindergartners, are super interested in showing me their dogs, stuffed animals, and injuries, but they are able to write full equations on a whiteboard and show it to me. My favorite game with them is “Mystery Dice,” where I roll two dice, cover one, and tell them the sum. Elementary teachers will recognize this as a “missing addend” problem, but it’s way more fun this way.2

Mystery Dice! My finger covering a die, then a plus sign and a die with a 2 = 5.

Second Grade

Currently, the most delightful groups that I see are second graders. Maybe it’s because I have a second grader in my own house, who rolls her eyes, giggles, and is able to argue a point, but all three of those things working together make this group especially endearing.

I had never heard of “Fact Families” before teaching K-5, but I see how it’s a helpful concept that all Math Teachers should know about.  In my group, I roll two dice and ask the second graders to show me two different addition problems with those dice.

4+6=10, 6+4=10, 10-6=4, and 10-4=6

This week, I’ve also been asking for two subtraction equations using the same three numbers. So there are four equations in one fact family3.

Okay, let’s pick up the pace a bit.

Third Grade

Not gonna lie, it’s been really fun to make the bridge from repeated addition to multiplication with this group. Now, they’re connecting arrays and multiplication to division, “If I divide the 24 dots into 4 columns, how many rows will that make?” 

Remember your first few years teaching a new content? When you’re thinking, “I betcha there’s a faster/easier/more effective way to teach this, but this is the best I’ve got for now.”? That’s how I feel about this unit, and I’m certain that more effective strategies will emerge organically when I have students around my kidney table instead of on a Zoom call.

Mystery Dice! My finger covering one die, then a multiplication symbol and a 12 showing on a second die (equal to 48)

Fourth Grade

Voted Most Likely To Contribute to Mr. Vaudrey’s Classroom Culture by a jury of their peers, these kiddos have made it most clear the need for interpersonal relationship (which has been lacking during quarantine). I have kids in my house that are beginning to show effects of social isolation, and the 4th graders in Math Club bring so much social energy that we end up covering more content, not less. 

If you’ve got some students that are engines, don’t waste your time pumping the brakes, hitch a trailer behind them and steer.

Long Division *sigh* is important or whatever, but I am struggling to get motivated. Partly because I know calculators exist, so the steps all feel like …

Like making your own whipped cream with heavy syrup and half-and-half. I mean, you could do it, and you’d feel really accomplished afterward … but why?

Ever seen a chef finish that and be like, “WOW WHAT A GOOD USE OF MY TIME.”

Photo by axel grollemund from Pexels

Fourth grade is also the spot where the gaps emerge most clearly for students who’ve slipped through the cracks. When I had an eleventh-grader who couldn’t multiply 9s, I handed them a calculator and we kept solving problems about volume. When a fourth-grader can’t add within 20… like, it’s my job to fix that gap

Remotely.

In a small group.

When they’re actively avoiding this learning gap becoming public.

Fifth Grade

It’s tempting to think of these kiddos like Middle-Schoolers (because I love Middle School so damn much), but they’re not. Sure, they’re seeing exponents and expressions for the first time, but they’re also ten years old.

The most helpful part about fifth graders is their comfort with the technology. They can change tabs, navigate through portals, and manipulate Google Apps comfortably, since they’ve been doing it for at least three years.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Would teach again.


Plenty of secondary teachers are frustrated with a system that deposits jaded students on our doorstep. When confronted with pressure to suddenly make up for ten years of learning gaps, I know I’ve been guilty of passing judgment on “last year’s teachers.” My perspective has been broadening this year, and it’s been great to peek behind the curtain into the elementary school, trying to keep students’ love and interest in math.

I hope they keep it forever.

~Matt “No, I’m not TikTok famous, but I’m glad your mom liked it.” Vaudrey


1“Wait… Vaudrey, weren’t you just applying to Admin jobs a few months ago?” Yep! After that one-year contract as temporary Dean of Students, I’ve been interested in Leadership, but I’m not in hurry to get there. Also, Elementary school is adorable, and I’m learning something new every day.

2This is a strategy from Kim Sutton of Creative Mathematics.

3 I could see Fact Families being helpful for understanding equations. If x+y=13, then 13=x+y and y-13= -x and so on.


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