Mathy Math Mom

         Growing up, we had homework. So as a new teacher, I assigned homework. Nothing special, 1-33 odd on whatever nonsense page we had “learned” that day. In all honesty, I talked and they listened, hardly learning, but that is another can of worms. I graded it, and hated every moment. Then I decided to really think about what I was assigning. Maybe 2 from this section, 3 from that, and always some word problems. Cue late and missing assignments, full lunch sessions of make-up work, etc. I am sure everyone knows the scene.   “I am teaching them responsibility” I would tell myself. “But what about the curve of forgetting?” the little voice in my ear would say when I wanted to skip it. Back then, my son was in preschool. He never wanted to sit with me to talk about letters or numbers, but he could build a Lego set for 8 year olds.     Then, he started Kindergarten. Besides the adventure of learning that he had ADHD and all that ens...

November 9, 2016 I am not an elementary school teacher.  I have a mathematics degree and the majority of my experience has been in a secondary classroom. Robert Fulgham I spent 3 years in varying ages from birth to prek. With this wide range of experience, I have always said that high school students are just kindergartners who "wipe their own nose". Although I agree with the obvious that they do more than that, it is important to remember that our primary and secondary students deserve the same, welcoming, highly engaging, rigorous, hands on education. Don't skimp with kindys and don't forget to have fun with big kids. One of my favorite activities is card sorts, arranging cards, find a frame, fill a frame, ... (the list goes on). Recently, I used this strategy with my first grader. He was working on related number sentences . For those of you who are unaware of the math associated with this academic language (myself included until a couple day...