Everyone is a Math Person At Episcopal Day, each and every one of our students is a mathematician, and we strive to ensure that they know it.
Mary Kimbell Math Specialist
Classrooms are a collection of different brains with different backgrounds, strengths, and struggles. All of these differences can work together to push the collective towards deeper levels of understanding. In our lower school math classrooms students at Episcopal Day are encouraged to work with their peers to learn different ways of thinking, seeing, and doing. We focus on collaboration, critical thinking, and number sense (which will collectively form the foundation for all future math learning), and create opportunities for students to think, explain, listen, use, and expand in authentic and engaging ways. When you can look at a number, shape, or
mathematical problem from different angles, you open your brain to new strategies that naturally deepen understanding over time.
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8 EPISCOPAL DAY SCHOOL OUR DAY
Starting in pre-K, students explore amounts and shapes in various ways that tap into their natural curiosity and emerging understanding of the world. They play with and talk about numbers in ways that make numbers, their relationships to one another, and ultimately ‘math’ real to them. I recently had the pleasure of being part of a conversation about the word "dozen" with our pre-K students. During this conversation, they learned that some things come in packs of twelve, and students were quick (and excited!) to share what they wish they had by the dozen. It was wonderful to watch them start to pick up on numbers and their real-world applications and meanings. Later in kindergarten, students begin the Everyday Math curriculum, a spiraling, exploration-based math curriculum that focuses on inquiry, collaboration, strategizing, critical
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thinking, justifying, and especially number sense in 11 content strands. At the same time, kindergarteners begin weekly small groups for differentiated math activities as well as interactive “centers” where they can further explore math concepts. One particularly engaging kindergarten small group activity involved students measuring their partners’ heights using sticky notes to determine if they would be tall enough to ride a roller coaster. This allowed them to build up a base understanding of ‘measurement’, a concept which evolves further in the first grade where students begin practicing measuring lengths with other items like paperclips before they are introduced to standard units like inches and centimeters. The goal of the trajectory is to build a strong conceptual base so that understanding continues to grow throughout the rest of our math program. This same gradual evolution is employed throughout the other content strands that students explore throughout the math sequence. In first grade students begin to participate in Math MixUps, weekly sessions in which a small group of students from one grade level works with a teacher on an open-ended activity or game. They continue until the fourth grade and are essential in growing positive mathematical mindsets. Not only are they a student favorite, but they give us the opportunity to delve even more into individual growth in the Standards for Mathematical Practice, meeting students where they are and encouraging them to push their thinking from there. Math MixUp sessions can range from things like placing digits in a puzzle to try to make the smallest number you can, exploring how many different rectangles you can make with the same amount of fencing, to directing a rover through a maze to collect as many points as you can without running out of fuel.
Each activity in our Math MixUps are carefully chosen and intentionally presented with a focus on exploration, problem-solving, and collaboration. While activities are differentiated for the
needs of each group, the launching point in all groups, no matter the level of understanding, is student voice and ideas. They are all mathematicians afterall, and our Math MixUp sessions allow them to really live that reality. I will leave you with one to try out yourself: If a display in the zoo has exactly seven animals and exactly twenty-two legs, what animals could it contain? If your final answer abides by the parameters outlined in the question, then congrats you’ve just successfully solved your first Math MixUp problem! It doesn’t matter that someone else guessed 3 ostriches, 2 zebras, and 2 lions while your guess was 2 hyenas, 2 lions, and 3 kangaroos. As students explore their own ideas, engage with their peers’ thoughts, and build an understanding of numerical concepts and their functions via real world application, math becomes very real and very personal. We are all mathematicians and we all think and learn in different ways. No one way is more correct than another, and true early math education should celebrate and amplify that. It certainly does here at Episcopal Day.
OUR DAY EPISCOPAL DAY SCHOOL 9