“You know, you can think of almost everything as a math problem.” ~ Mrs. Fibonacci, The Math Curse, by Jon Scieszka and Lane Smith
There is so much math happening every day at Summers-Knoll. As I was compiling the photos for this week’s SK newsletter, I was struck by the many ways students are engaging with math. With the Singapore Math program as the backbone of the mathematics instruction at SK, students learn math using concrete, pictorial, and abstract approaches to “actively think, understand and communicate to solve math problems.” Like all curricula, the Singapore Math program provides the “what,” but it doesn’t prescribe “how” teachers meet the needs of each individual student, hence, the art and craft of the instructional cycle: creating an environment conducive to learning, deliberate planning, responsive instructional practices, formative assessment (repeat).
Then there are the Common Core State Standards for math, which provide a recommended set of content- and concept-specific skills and sets of knowledge for each grade level, kindergarten through 12th. The Math CCSS are a combination of practices (inherent in the discipline of mathematics) and content (a balance of procedure and understanding). The practices are: 1) Make sense of problems and persevere in solving them, 2) Reason abstractly and quantitatively, 3) Construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others, 4) Model with mathematics, 5) Use appropriate tools strategically, 6) Attend to precision, 7) Look for and make use of structure, and 8) Look for and express regularity in repeated reasoning. The overarching K – 8 Math CCSS content categories are: counting and cardinality, operations and algebraic thinking, number and operations in base ten, fractions, measurement and data, geometry, expressions and equations, statistics and probability, ratios and proportional relationships, and functions.
At SK, teachers draw upon the Math CCSS and use the Singapore Math program to inform their instruction. In addition to the data provided on Singapore unit tests and the NWEA MAP Growth assessment in math, teachers check for students’ understanding of math concepts on a daily basis as an integral part of their teaching so they can meet each child where they are while supporting them in their growth toward meeting grade level (or above grade level) standards.
Students are encouraged to move at their own pace with no imposed limits to their progress. Although our highest grade level at SK is 8th, a number of Upper School students are already doing Algebra and Algebra 2, so we use high school-level curricula and standards in our advanced Upper School math class. Some 3rd and 4th graders go to the Upper School for their math instruction.
Summers-Knoll teachers also incorporate math into project-based learning and other content areas. For example, in the Young 5/Kindergarten and first/second grade classes, students are currently studying shapes in their projects through a lens of visual art and art history. In the 3rd/4th grade class’s current project, students are exploring “how they can transfer the energy around us to do things in a new way,” and in their construction of water wheels and wind turbines, they are using mathematical principles in conjunction with scientific reasoning to design and test ways to transfer energy. In the upper school, they are engaged in a collaboration with the University of Michigan, Place Out of Time (POOT), which provides students with opportunities to research historical and contemporary figures whose perspectives they adopt in a simulation trial. As part of their POOT project this year, they are constructing timelines of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and identifying which groups of people were affected by the various laws and how.
In Art class, students have begun constructing luminaries for Ann Arbor’s annual FestiFools and FoolMoon Parade. This requires applying mathematical computation, spatial reasoning, and problem solving to create three-dimensional, wire-structure shapes. In Music, the concepts are inherently mathematical: rhythm, musical notes and rests (whole, half, quarter), time signatures. You can’t escape math when learning how to read sheet music and play an instrument or sing a choral piece. In Languages with Madame Imogen, students learn how to count and do simple arithmetic in French and Latin. They learn Greek and Latin roots for geometric terminology (e.g., angles, sides) as well as Roman Numerals. Much of the Latin and French content is framed within historical time periods, so mathematical vocabulary (e.g., years, numeric designations) is woven throughout. Even the date on white board is written in both French and Latin with Roman Numerals.
Going well beyond rote memorization of math facts (although this is necessary), opportunities for applying mathematical reasoning and problem solving abound in our daily lives. And at SK, it’s everywhere!