Thursday, August 23, 2012

Math and literacy ideas

I was lucky this summer to have the opportunity to work with math educators in a co-teaching workshop I led as well as at a conference I attended on the common core standards. One of the secondary teachers in the co-teaching workshop was looking for chapter books and picture books to supplement the curriculum. She came across this link of math and literacy book recommendations on the California Department of Ed web site: it says it was last updated in 2007, so won't have the most recent authors, but still has great ideas listed by genre and grade level. Unfortunately, most of my middle school and high school math classes involved rote plugging of numbers in formulas from text books to find the right answer. I wish I had had more access to books on math ideas when I was a student-- it would have helped me with math concepts as well as improved my attitude towards math and increased my enjoyment of the subject.

One of the evenings of the conference I played Quiddler with colleagues: I'm not usually one for games, but I really enjoyed this one and loved the math and literacy connection. It can be played with and modified for children as young as five or six and reinforces both word play and number automaticity. One of my colleagues uses it frequently along with math modifications for games like "War" and "Go Fish" for students she tutors as well as in the classroom (great center ideas!).