While I don't technically teach math, it doesn't stop my love for it. Our rotations have broken up the division of labor so that my team essentially has specialists for math, reading/social studies, and science. I'll admit, my math usage in social studies has been minimal this year, but I hope to pick it up. Alas I digress.
In cleaning out my Google Reader, and the 200+ blog postings sitting awaiting my perusal, I stumbled upon a link from Dan Meyer. The general gist is that you have a pyramid of circles (many many circles) and you ask kids to "find the total number of circles." I imagine how my 5th graders would solve it. Counting them up for the less experience/savvy. Algebraically for the math savvy. Geometrically for the visual spatial. I looked at the table sitting next to it, which provided the row and number in each row, but quickly discarded it. I saw two triangles, and was going to find the total for each, at which point I stumbled upon the fact that they fit together to make what appears to be a square- LxW! Count up and down, multiply.
Our kids are doing double digit multiplication, which would mesh quite well. I'm considering taking it out on Wednesday prior to leaving for our midwinter break (probably not, but we'll see). To me there are two very clear illustrations: 1) there are a myriad of ways to solve math problems, you just need to find the one that works for you (no matter what problem), and 2) strong number sense and math fact knowledge will serve you well. Geometric sense/knowledge would be a bonus, but number sense for sure. If you are aware of patterns you will be in good shape- seeing each row increase by 2 (total and add). Or simply being able to break into parts and multiply.
No comments:
Post a Comment