End the Winter Doldrums by Mixing in Math
February 7, 2012
This interview and the corresponding article appeared in the January/February 2012 issue of The Oregon Mathematics Teacher. The Oregon Mathematics Teacher is published by the Oregon Council of Teachers of Mathematics (the state's NCTM affiliate) five times yearly, and includes information about the activities of OCTM; teacher articles; and student activities for grades K through 14 and teacher-education colleges. More information about the Oregon Council of Teachers of Mathematics can be found at: www.octm.org.
by Jackie Cooke, Title One Math Specialist
Gresham-Barlow School District, Gresham, Oregon
I LOVE ATTENDING MATH CONFERENCES! The annual math conference in Indianapolis was no exception. While cruising through the exhibit hall, I stopped to talk to an acquaintance and ended up joining a new professional organization. If you haven’t ever heard of TODOS and their mission to make math accessible for all, you might be interested to check out their website at www.todos-math.org. They have many different member benefits including Teaching for Excellence and Equity In Mathematics (TEEM)—an electronic newsletter full of timely tips and many opportunities to participate in professional development by attending conferences sponsored by their organization and signing up for online webinars.
This fall, they sponsored an excellent webinar called Mixing in Math (MiM). By participating in this webinar, I learned about some wonderful math resources that I wanted to share with all of you. Mixing in Math is a resource made available by TERC, a not-for-profit education research and development organization dedicated to improving mathematics, science, and technology teaching. These materials offer over 200 English and Spanish resources that blend math with fitness, nature, cooking, and daily routines like cleaning up. The materials were developed with input from hundreds of afterschool educators, librarians, and others who support children’s learning. MiM is easy to use, written at a 5th-6th grade reading level for those with little time to read, and best of all— the activities are all available as free downloads from the Mixing in Math website!
The activities and projects use only a few common materials, such as old paper towel tubes, scrap paper, decks of playing cards, etc. They are intended for use with children in kindergarten through sixth grade. The activities are written with “easy,” “medium,” and “hard” variations for everything from five-minute activities to projects that take an hour or more and are designed so that adults can customize them to fit the interests, cultures and languages of their audiences.
MiM can be used during out-of-school time or in school. These routines, projects, and materials could be used at day care centers, libraries, public programs, and at home. They show how math can be mixed into everyday things. Children learn that math can be part of the things they enjoy. Adults don’t need to set up a separate “math time.” MiM can be a separate program—but it doesn’t have to be. They suggest many ways to integrate math into a wide variety of other content areas.
These resources include games, projects, movement activities, and posters for display. They would be great to use at a Family Math Night; for afterschool math clubs; and for “sponge” activities when there are a few extra minutes during the school day. I have hung several of their posters of interesting math topics on bulletin boards out in the hall for classes to talk about when passing by my room and have included games and activities in my weekly homework newsletter.
For more information about Mixing in Math, please visit mixinginmath.terc.edu, or MiM's Facebook page.
For more, see http://mixinginmath.terc.edu/aboutMiM/reports/MiM_OMTArticle.pdf.
