Marvels in Math

This year our elementary school adopted a new math curriculum.  Kindergarten & 1st adopted, Math In Focus- Singapore Mathematics and 2nd-5th grade adopted My Math.  The intention is to roll the adoption of Math In Focus all the way to 5th grade.  It was too much to do in one year so we started small.

Training for new Math curriculum

Last summer I had the privilege of being trained in our new math curriculum, Singapore Math.  The intentions of it were for me to help our Kindergarten and First grade teachers with implementation and to prepare the grade 2 for Math In Focus the following year.  At the conference I learned many applicable strategies that could be easily applied to any grade level with any curriculum.  It excited me to help our students develop and strengthen their math skills.   In the fall, I have a brief presentation to the elementary teachers about Singapore Math strategies as we move towards that methodology of teaching mathematics.

Training by Dr. Yeap Ban Har of Singapore

This year I've enjoyed blending My Math, Math In Focus and Singapore Math together.  I started the year my using the My Math as a framework and used Singapore strategies to teach.  It was different and fun to create new lessons as present math in different ways.  One specific Singapore approach is Concrete- Pictorial- Abstract or C-P-A.  Through searching on the web, looking at other teachers' ideas and through God's gifts I thought of many different ways to teach math in concrete and pictorial ways that I hadn't in my previous 9 years of teaching.

Here are a few examples:

 
Learning about part-part-whole number relations to learn about number bonds, and fact families.

         

Pictorial drawings of making tens to add.  This was done after lots of practicing with manipulat

Learning to add and subtract three digit numbers- we used base ten blocks more than ever before.  















Learning pictorial ways of problem solving.  The Model Drawing or Bar Modeling has been a big focus for our class.  It has been especially helpful for my non-native English speakers.  It helps them to slow down and think through the problems.  I see it developing their reading comprehension skills in addition to their math conceptual skills.







Just this week we were working on problem solving with model drawing or bar modeling.  I was in the middle of a lesson and God gave me an "ah-ha" moment to help my students understand better.

This is the "fruit" of the ah-ha moment.  Hands-on modeling to build understanding.

I am so thankful for little glimpses of God's sustaining faithfulness and goodness to me as I continue to grow as a teacher.  He continues to be give me better ways to help my students understand.