It’s Elementary, My Dear Watson!
Submitted by
Lynn Billett and Margaret Williams
Teaching and Learning Specialist for Intermediate Mathematics
Anoka-Hennepin ISD 11
The pools and beaches are abandoned. Mornings require a long-sleeved something which is relegated to the back of your chair by lunch time. Welcome back to another school year!
We hope your year is off to an exciting start. Our goal for this column is to inspire teachers to inspire children. How can we help our students to see their world through a mathematical lens? Recently, the Tall Ship Festival was held in Duluth, with the world’s largest rubber duck! What math teacher wouldn’t be psyched to contemplate the opportunities, right? “What do you see?” “What do you wonder?” What is the math we can uncover? Scale? Estimation? What else?
Extraordinary…and everyday experiences can and should be the fodder for wonderings that draw children into asking questions and thinking deeply about possibilities. It is so easy for us as adults to fall into the trap of jumping in to answer questions that arise – robbing our students of the chance to figure things out and learn at a conceptual level. It is our hope that you will encourage your students to notice, wonder, think and explore.
Here are a couple of sites that have inspired us:
https://christopherdanielson.
Lynn and Margaret are Teaching and Learning Specialists for Elementary Math with the Anoka-Hennepin School District.
Want to connect?
lynn.billett@ahschools.us or #HiPi2U
margaret.williams@ahschools.us
New and Future Teachers: Be sure to attend the CONNECT Session on the Thursday evening before the MCTM Spring Conference in Duluth. For more information, contact connect@mctm.org