THE LADY OR THE TIGER (~60 minutes) A puzzle has the ability to pull children into the subject of math. A story even more so. Let’s combine the two. 1. The Story We start this activity by reading a condensed version of Frank Stockton’s classic tale “The Lady or the Tiger”. After the story, we …
WEEK ONE – Activity Two – The Lady and the Tiger Read More »
Activities in the first couple weeks need to draw the children in. Even (especially!) those who think they dislike math. We avoid computation, instead looking for activities that involve ambiguity, head-scratching patterns, puzzles and stories. ACTIVITY ONE TEACHING LOGIC FIRST: (~15 minutes) A puzzle has the ability to pull children into the subject of math. …
THREE GUIDELINES FOR CHANGE 1. Concrete −> Pictorial −> Abstract. This is perhaps Singapore’s greatest contribution to math pedagogy. Based on research that goes back over a hundred years (Dewey, Bruner, Piaget, Vygotsky, Montessori, and others), Singapore validated the strength of this approach by using it to achieve top scores internationally.
Thanks for joining us! “Mental acuity of any kind comes from solving problems yourself, not from being told how to solve them.” ~Paul Lockhart, “A Mathematician’s Lament”