MathyCathy's Blog – Mrs. Cathy Yenca

Thank you to Kristen at Secondary Solutions for the personal invitation to her New Year’s Blog Party for middle and high school teacher bloggers!  It’s inspiring to read about what other teachers are doing, and to gain new perspectives and ideas!  Check out her page to discover other “kindred spirits” in education:

http://secondarysolutionsblog.com/author/secondarysolutions/

My 6-year-old son is fascinated by numbers.  He quantifies EVERYTHING.  I found an old scientific calculator in a drawer this weekend, and gave it to him.  Immediately, he started grilling me… “Mom, do YOU know what 80 times 80 is?  It’s 6,400!”  Once I showed him the “shift” function, he was in his glory!

“Hey mom, do you know this calculator has a log button?  And sin too?  Is that bad?”

(I swear I do NOT indoctrinate this child with mathematics – his curiosity is so pure and sincere!)

Now, his new mission is to memorize digits of pi.  He’s irritated that the calculator rounds the last digit, so I printed him the first 100 digits of pi.  After retrieving “pi” from my printer, I found him in his room, writing furiously in a notebook.  Here is his finished product!

Is it too early to teach a 6-year-old about pi?  Do you think my son’s curiosity is exceptional, or do many young children have the capacity for this kind of curiosity about mathematics?  Do we wait too long to teach many mathematical concepts?  Or do we try to teach too many abstract topics too soon?

Our district recently purchased new laptops for students to use.  I stopped by the classroom where the laptops were being stored and unpacked and was taken aback by the voluminous mountain of cardboard boxes.  Immediately, I snapped a picture, knowing full well that my right-before-Thanksgiving-break lesson plan was unfolding.

The day before break, I displayed the photo to each of my six classes using a data projector.  I also provided 2 photocopies of the picture to each group of students.  My question, quite simply, was “How many boxes?”  (We focused on the brown cardboard boxes in the photo, and decided to ignore my right shoulder!)

Student teams got right to work.  There’s something so exciting about presenting students with such a simple problem statement.  The room was instantly buzzing with conversation!  After several minutes, I gave each team a post-it to write their final estimate.  We came together as a class, and each group had 1 minute to justify their total.  What most pleased me was that every group in every class had specific mathematical explanations to support their final answers.  Most students took the approach of counting the number of boxes in a vertical stack, then multiplying by how many stacks they thought there were in the “mountain”.  Many groups added a few more boxes to this total, taking into account the boxes that might be hiding from view.  Some students directly related the concept of volume and the formula V = l • w • h to the scenario.  Some groups tried to actually count the boxes one by one, yet others disregarded the picture entirely, and based their totals on inaccurate assumptions, reasoning that every student in the building would be receiving a new laptop (not the case!).  Even for these students, I was pleased that they were able to justify their estimates with some level of mathematical reasoning.

So… how many boxes do YOU think there are in “Box Mountain”? 😉

Saturday morning means blog time!

I have been reading “Learning to Love Math” by Judy Willis.  I adore Judy Willis.  I had the opportunity to attend one of her workshops several years ago, and was completely inspired by her expertise in the brain and student learning.  (After all, she was a neurologist before deciding to become a math teacher!)  Her quirky presentation style and overall excitement about how the brain learns mathematics has forever influenced my lesson planning.

One strategy she mentions is the idea of “advertising” for an upcoming math topic.  A great website to use to create movie-like trailers is ANIMOTO.  I adore ANIMOTO.  While not practical for note-taking or needs otherwise met by typical slideshow applications, ANIMOTO combines images, videos, music, and spiffy transitions to give a brief “wow factor” to motivate and spark curiosity in students.

Simply choose a math topic, use images and videos from ANIMOTO’S stock photos or use your own.  Upload the images, add text as you see fit, pick a soundtrack or use your own, and VOILA… the magic begins!  Within minutes, ANIMOTO works its magic to create an impressive presentation for you, taking care of all of the details!  Transitions are generated automatically to synchronize your images to the beat of the song.  Oh, and if you’re an educator, you can request an ANIMOTO PLUS account for free!

Here’s a “trailer” I created for 6th graders using images and a soundtrack from the ANIMOTO library.  There was plenty of toe tapping!  After showing the presentation, I asked students to write down three things they remembered from the “trailer.”  After a brief discussion to assess their prior knowledge of formulas, we watched the video again and began a lesson on applying formulas.

Another website that makes for great “advertising” is Xtranormal.  I adore Xtranormal.  “If you can type, you can make movies!”  Customize a cartoon for your needs by typing the script, and watch an impressive show unfold!   I e-mailed support and asked if there were any freebies for educators, and received thousands of points in Xtranormal’s currency to create cartoons.  Here’s a sample from my collection.

I finally commit to starting a blog, and it has taken me over a month to post!  Now that my son’s soccer season has ended, I have that luxury of waking up on a Saturday morning without having to jolt out the door for an early game.  Saturday mornings are usually my most creative moments for new ideas… nothing like a quiet house and a good night’s sleep!

I have motivation on the brain today, so, here I am to share some strategies I’ve been using over the past more-than-a-month that have really motivated my students:

• Novelty – Anything out of the ordinary that has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with math seems to really motivate students!  I don’t necessarily think it’s the lack of math relevance that gets ’em going; I think it’s the element of the unexpected.  For example, I am thankful to have an ELMO document camera in my classroom, and any student who would like to solve a problem at the ELMO knows he or she will do so while using a large carrot-shaped pen.  Random, but very motivating!
• Media – I adore this site for movie clips that involve mathematics!  Beware – some clips are NOT appropriate for student viewing… so preview first!  Some of my favorite clips to use for middle-schoolers are:
• Father of the Bride – The dilemma of 8 hot dogs per package and 12 buns per package provokes discussion about “least common multiple”
• The Wizard of Oz – Is the Scarecrow’s Theorem the Pythagorean Theorem?  Here’s a resource from Math Bits that accompanies the movie clip quite well.
• Ma and Pa Kettle – classic clip to provoke discussion about math misconceptions and “error analysis” (which I generally call “Find ‘N Fix”… we’ll talk more about that strategy later!)
• Music – Don’t forget to use music when appropriate!  Recently while addressing integers, opposites and absolute value, I played the chorus of the song “Hot ‘n Cold” by Katy Perry to address opposites.  Needless to say, I had them hooked for the rest of the lesson.  Are there any current songs you use that have mathematical meaning?

Off to watch some cartoons! 🙂