Today as we settled back into our routines after Spring Break, I took a little time to share with my math group about some math related explorations I did over break. For the first part of the break I took time off entirely: time to play with my granddaughters, time to watch the Final Four, time to hike and look for wildflowers. But the last few days of break I began to look through some math materials and think more about math and the rest of the year.
Math Solutions has a new book that looks interesting, Faster Isn't Smarter. Several chapters of the book are available online (http://www.mathsolutions.com/index.cfm?page=wp18&contentid=994&crid=294&mcrid=107) and that gave me a chance to read through them and mull them over. I shared with my students the name of the book and the idea that sometimes thinking deeper and taking time to process yields a broader understanding than coming up with a quick answer. Being fast in math doesn't necessarily mean you are smarter than others who take more time. I told my students that what is important is to learn what strategies work for you.
I also shared an activity from the latest edition of Teaching Children Mathematics, published by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. The activity I read about was for kindergarten students so I upgraded it some for my students. It involved tossing some 2 sided counters (red and white) and recording how many of each color turned up. Students were asked how they figured the totals (recognized the number, counted, knew the number fact, grouped the counters in their mind, etc.) They got practice in explaining their math strategies to the group or to a partner. Some students took on the additional challenge of explaining what they heard another student share as a strategy. We will do this activity again soon, working with a different total number of counters.
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