Numeracy at Leila North

Ms. Emma’s class!

This year the class explored how we could effectively build our math community. Students did

this by taking risks, embracing productive struggle, and using multiple strategies on one

question. One avenue this led us down was Number Talks. Number Talks is when the entire class

engages in a series of mental math questions. One question at a time is written on the board and

students think carefully about how they could solve it. Their goal is to find multiple different

ways to solve a seemingly simple question. Students would either show me a thumbs up in their

lap or, in the event they had used several strategies, they would indicate this with their fingers.

Students were reminded that being “good at math” had nothing to do with speed. They could

take all the time they needed as long as each mathematician was thinking carefully about what

was on the board. For example: How many different ways could you solve 18 x 5 mentally?

One student realized she could solve it by doing 2 groups of 18, plus 2 groups of 18, plus 1 group

of 18:

18 x 2 = 36

18 x 2 = 36

18 x 1 = 18

= 90

Another student realized she could HALVE one number and DOUBLE the other, making it

become 9 x 10 instead.

A grade seven student realized he could HALVE one of the numbers, and add it twice: 9 x 5 plus

9 x 5.

Another area in which we tried to build our math community was through problem solving. We

looked closely at the “Pit of Learning” as Jo Boaler calls it, and talked a lot about what that felt

like, and why it was important that we struggled in math. Many students, when asked to describe

math, will say it is all about rules and procedures. But most mathematicians will tell you that

math is about the study of patterns. Mathematics, at its heart, is about pattern-seeking. One way

in which we engaged in this type of learning was inviting the students to find and study patterns

in the world’s most famous triangle that has fascinated people for centuries, Pascal’s Triangle!

Students were given a copy of Pascal’s triangle with some missing numbers and in pairs, were

tasked with finding the missing numbers.

The last area in building our math community was through celebrating the wonders of

mathematics! On Einstein’s birthday, March 14th, we celebrated Pi Day! We found Pi in the

circles around the class, we had our minds blown by Pi facts (such as Pi has been calculated to

22 trillion digits so far and yet, no pattern has been found), and ate circle snacks. The student

who memorized the most digits in Pi was awarded with pie-ing me in the face. It was sticky but

so worth it.

Density Towers –Ms. Olsen’s class

The concept of density is from Science, actually, but building a density tower is a real-world

application of the mathematical skills involving decimal numbers and ratios.

The students worked in groups, measuring the mass of seven different liquids, and then

calculating the density of each liquid. This involved measuring to two decimal places in order to

be as accurate as possible. The density is calculated by dividing the mass by the volume. Each

group was given the same volume of each liquid.

When they had calculated all the densities, their challenge was to layer them in a beaker so that

they would sit one on top of the other. The final result is below.

This Science challenge was a great way for the students to use math, work together, and create a

really cool final product!

Jack Frost Challenge

This year Ms. Paukovic’s grade 6 class participated in the Jack Frost Challenged. They spent one

hour everyday for one week learning outside. The Jack Frost challenged happened in February

and it was one of the coldest weeks of the year, but the students bundled up and did their learning

outside. They built snow forts then measured the area and perimeter of them; they made a replica

of the solar system out of snow; they created artistic snow sculptures; and they walked around

their community to see where their peers lived. In the student reflections for this week of

learning, students wrote that it was difficult to be outside during the cold, but they still learnt a

lot and they remembered how much they liked playing in the snow and being outside with

nature.

Resources in Numeracy –Ms. Wiebe

Early in the 2020 school year, I noticed a colleague using the Jump math series as a resource.

After a little investigation and reading, I discovered the philosophy of jump math was, believing

that every child has the capacity to be fully numerate and love math. The creators offer

interactive lessons, assessment and practice books. I purchased all the practiced books from K-8

at a very reasonable cost. These book follow the Canadian curriculum and have enabled us to

produce materials for any student working at any grade level that mirrors the topic, the rest of the

class is working on. This way students can be included in the group work and instructional led

portions of class while still independently working at a level that enables them to find success. I

particularly like the visual nature of the materials at the early elementary level, as many students

who need some kind of adaptation have more success when they can see visual examples of the

skill they are learning. We also added mindset mathematics to our resources. These resources

help teachers and in turn students when investigation and visualizing big ideas in math.

Grade 7 Math: A Fraction of Our Learning

In Ms. McLean’s grade 7-math class, we regularly finds ways to mix- up our math learning. On

this particular day in January 2020, student’s were in small stations practicing their work with

fractions. We know there are multiple ways to work and think about fractions, and this was no

different. There was “Take 5” –where student drew any five cards from a deck of fraction cards

and ordered them from least to greatest. There was “Pick of the litter” –where student’s selected

one piece of crumple fraction and tried to represent the fraction in six different ways; There was

Fraction Pictionary-where you draw a card, and show the fraction or equivalent. For example:

show 4/8 of a chessboard, or show 4/9 of a softball team. Finally, there was Process Detectives-

where student’s used the info provided to solve the word fraction problem posed on each card.

As one student commented, “I like how we used the game of Pictionary to show or draw

fractions of things”. So paper and pencil math learning you say, in room 20, while that is a part

of our practice, it is also, not even the half of it!