Math is more than formulas and equations...

My fellow math nerds and I may be the only people who REALLY enjoyed this show, but the opening always resonated with me.

"We all use math every day: to predict weather, to tell time, to handle money. Math is more than formulas and equations. It's logic. It's rationality. It's using your mind to solve the biggest mysteries we know."

"...more than formulas and equations..." that couldn't be more true for our youngest learners. While they are building the skills to add, subtract, multiply, and divide their teachers are also encouraging them to be pattern recognizers. Pattern recognition leads to deeper mathematical understanding.

Recognizing repeated addition or subtraction is the first step in recognizing linear relationships.

Recognizing repeated multiplication or division is the introduction to geometric sequences and exponential growth and decay.

Ask the kids in your life about what patterns they see. Ask them to predict what comes next in a list of numbers. BUT - and this is the most important part - ask them WHY they made their prediction. Don't let them off the hook with a shrug and "I don't know". Press them to explain their thinking. You might be surprised at what math they see and use every day.

Comments

Homework = Tears? What's the upstream problem?

Tell me if you've heard this one before... Parent and child at the table working on child's homework. Child becomes frustrated and begins to cry Parent becomes equally (or more) frustrated by the tears/the assignment/both. Sound familiar? It's pretty common, but let's ask a new question - what's the upstream problem? Not familiar with the idea of "upstream problems"? It was new to me until very recently - but the best description I've heard is this: There's a town in which every evening a child washes up on the banks of the local river. Every day the fire department rescues the child and is lauded as heroes. One day a new fire chief takes over. After a week, he throws up his hands and just as the child washes up, he hops in, saves the child, but doesn't stay for the celebration. Instead he marches upstream. When he's questioned on his way out of town he

The Power of Yet (and I Don't Know)

This one's for all the parents facing the "why...?" and "how...?" and "why not...?" and "do I have to...?" questions. And for the teachers (and parents) who are uncomfortable with admitting they aren't the omniscient geniuses we'd like our kids (and students) to believe we are. There is a LOT of power in the word YET. And even more power (in my opinion) in admitting you don't know. Students of all ages need to know that they don't have to know everything - and the people in their lives don't know everything either. Try it out. It's OK to not get it, yet. It's OK to not know. Let's find out together.

Keep, Borrow, Change...Right?

Subtraction - Take Aways - Whatever you call it this is the first "big" hurdle for many students in a long race of mathematics. It turns out that this first hurdle is often the first time parents seem to get beyond frustrated with the MANY ways students are presented with solving a subtraction problem. All of the skills you'll see in this video are essentially shortcuts that many discover on their own through mental math and practice. By presenting them to students at a young age they become more and more comfortable with numbers and their reasoning and number sense improves overall. Enjoy!

Demystifying Elementary Math (from a Secondary Perspective)

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