The X Factor: Demystifying Algebra or is it?

 

MPI today was a much more stress free day for me this time round, I didn't feel as rushed and appreciated the thinking time we were given to process the information. The slides seemed to flow better for me too while the knowledge shared made clear sense. Not that I think any in the past haven't made perfect sense so maybe its me who is in a better space! The most exciting development about this experience is .... I have a much better understanding of algebra and how to present it to the children in a way that makes sense. I have loved maths all my life and watching children 'get it' fulls my heart. With the Numeracy Project my mead went round in circles and tired itself in knots sometimes. This new curriculum with the science of learning behind it and the scope and sequence has cleared things up for me and made me believe in myself as a teacher again ...well that and these MPI sessions. We have been told to insert picture to make the blog more interesting so here is a photo of some wool - I come from a long line of knitters and have a knitting club at school - the children are into finger knitting at the moment and groups of children frantically knitting can be spotted all around out school. What maths would you do with this picture?

My class and I are just beginning to look at multiplication and division. A topic that terrified them last week. So five days into it they are all loving it, with pattern spotting being the main drive. I can see how clearly this will fit into algebra and solving number problems which I cam excited about. I have used the maths talk approach and estimation learning from last week and children are really thriving with the wondering and discussion.

I share a lot with the staff and hearing there feed back has been great. So another photo of a quilt I recently made - I started this year off with the goal of making sure the children in this school know that maths is everywhere. I had a laugh the other day as I was chatting to some kids at lunchtime and one mentioned something which I quickly turned into a maths question....'No, I'm done with math's today, its not math time!" she responded.

May the love keep coming I say and empowering all those around us!

Thank you ladies for all the hard work! I'm off to do duty again!!

A fraction of the day .....Day 4 of MPI

 Oh my gosh. my head hurts and its not even lunchtime yet! And now it's time for the blog post. As much as I enjoy all the incredible information that is given in these professional development days, I struggle with the shortage of time to between ideas and tasks. 'Lets put a pin in that and pivot" rings loud in my ears as I have to drop what I was doing and flip onto something else. I am having flash backs to university days when i worked on the belief that 1 hour in the lecture was two hours in the library - I have a funny feeling I may have said that in an earlier session.... and if I did well so be it...I now have 20 hours to find so I can get my head around all the information given today. I am trying hard to work out how to access all the resources already made and created by the thousands of teachers in our country - I would love the ministry to have lesson plans and activities linked to the  AO's so I could spend less time creating stuff. Now I am feeling that someone is going to come forward and say - here are the links - they have been here for years!  Now it is confession time - I have used the ARB's but find them, at times, out of date and not at all useful. Eako drives me nuts - I think the idea is great but as a teacher I find it annoying and time consuming, thats confession 1. Confession two - we were shown the link to Spring in to maths - a very useful site I think after the brief look I had at it - I have never seen or heard of it before, which as an experienced teacher and lead in maths, scares me. I never thought I was a teacher with my head in the sand but am now feeling that I most certainly am.  Or is it that so much information is thrown at us we miss the important or most useful sites and concepts? Then my mind goes to the fact that everyone is different, what works for one, won't work for another.  It has to at some stage become simpler! I spoke to a teacher recently, who is in their 4 year of teaching, and asked her if she uses base ten blocks. Her response was "I use to have them in my class but don't know." I asked why and she responded that she had no idea how to use them. 'Lets put a pin in that and pivot" we have five minutes left and I am thinking this blog post isn't really what I should be doing!

I have had a mixed week this week in my class, I am struggling with fine tuning the planning, I feel like I am juggling a hundred ideas and none of them are sticking or working together - the need is to simplify and know I have got it. I spend time creating lots of thing but they never seem to get used to the depth they deserve. And now I have duty ........