Sunday 22 September 2013

Maths Week: “Maths! A real life experience.” (23 Sept – 28 Sept 2013).

Notes to Parents..

We are facilitating Maths Week as children need to experience mathematics as problem solvers, investigators, and communicator by finding out what happens next by using mathematics to find out things for themselves (prior knowledge) to what they do not already know. (Build their new knowledge). Rather than trying to figure out what the teacher wants them to do, children should need to understand that mathematics is about reasoning: making connections about why something is the way it is and then checking out those connections.  

Tips for Parents:  

I would like to the idea of practicing productive struggle to help children learn mathematics. As children have the tools and prior knowledge to solve a problem, they should not be given a problem that is out of reach, they will struggle without being productive. Children should not also be given tasks that are clear-cut and easy, if not they not be struggling with mathematical ideas. When children know that struggle is expected as part of the process of doing mathematics, they embrace the struggle and feel success when they reach a solution.

Maths is everywhere
Children should be provided the environment to understand that mathematics is about daily experiences: counting the biscuits on the plate, using geometry to build their building in their block corners, clarifying their reasoning by talking to their friends, by listening to what they have to say, recording their experiences and their thinking with words and visual aids such as with diagrams and pictures, and with mathematical symbols.
Rather than making the Math curriculum a set of rote learning, mathematics should be used as a guide to make connections, to see the relationships between mathematical ideas and experiencing mathematics everywhere one looks.


“ Happy Maths Week” J

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