The main goal of Math Awareness Month should be to “demystify” the subject, alleviate the “math anxiety” some students experience, and show students that math can be interesting, challenging, engaging, and fun.
How you, as teachers, encourage and promote your student’s math learning, from preschool to high school, can be pivotal to their attitude toward math and their achievement in this subject area. In an effort to deliver the fundamentals of math in new and interesting ways, teachers should organize a fun-filled month of educational math activities.
Notice math in the world. You can help your students see the usefulness of math by pointing it out wherever you see it. Math is a part of everyday life. Students need to see that math is practical and useful. The more closely you align your teaching with the real-life activities of your students, the more learning will resonate with them. Math is one of the easiest subjects to connect to real-life activities.
Mary Ellen Bafumo in her article Making Math Meaningful suggests trying the following:
“Distribute empty cereal boxes to small groups of students. Practice the four operations via word problems built around preparing a class breakfast. Students use portion info on the side of the box to complete math examples. How many boxes are needed to feed the class? What is the cost per serving? How many gallons of milk are needed? The class votes, via a bar graph with each cereal represented, about which to serve in class. Students measure cereal and milk servings and enjoy!
Distribute flyers from office stores. Pairs of students “shop” for a complete computer station for home. They figure cost, tax and shipping, then respond to word problems. On a $150 monthly budget, how long will it take to pay for the equipment? If you pay off the balance in three, four or five payments, how much is each installment? Students then develop a word problem structured around the task to share with the class.
Distribute travel ads. Small groups of students plan a dream vacation. They calculate transportation, accommodations, meals and incidentals, then multiply by their group members. Ask your class the following questions. If the PTA provides $2,500 for the trip, how much will each group member have to raise? If airfare is donated, how much will the trip cost, etc.?
Create scenarios based on the interests of your students. Use advertisements (movies, video games, cds, bicycles, etc.) that spark their enthusiasm and watch math take on new meaning.”
Another great thing to try is math games. I’ve been teaching math to children for many years, and I’ve found that math games are, from a teacher’s point of view, wonderfully useful. Math games put children in exactly the right frame of mind for learning. Children are normally very eager to play games. They relax when they play, and they concentrate. They don’t mind repeating certain facts or procedures over and over. Games incorporate the ways children best learn mathematics: through the use of physical manipulatives within the context of developmentally appropriate practice – games require active involvement.
Children throw themselves into playing games the way they never throw themselves into filling out workbook pages or dittos. And games can, if you select the right ones, help children learn almost everything they need to master in elementary math. Good, child-centered games are designed to take the boredom and frustration out of the repetitive practice necessary for children to master important math skills and concepts.
Games teach or reinforce many of the skills that a formal curriculum teaches, plus a skill that formal learning sometimes, mistakenly, leaves out – the skill of having fun with math, of thinking hard and enjoying it.
Try a math game in March! Need some ideas at your grade level?
Click here to find math games at every elementary grade level.
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