“These kids are at such a great age, everything you say is new to them, and they just soak it up. We spend a lot of the day reading; at the beginning of the year most are able to read a simple sentence, and by the end they are reading chapter books, so it’s a huge year for them. There’s social studies and science, as well as some art and music, but the other biggest portion of the day is math.

And we have the most fun with math! We play a lot of games. They’re having fun, but they’re also learning exactly what I want them to. They need to have a strong number sense because pretty quickly we move on to complex addition and subtraction, and word problems.

Exposing them to multiple resources, or ways to solve a problem is important, because they each learn and process things differently. Using manipulatives, like the Lego brick sets we got with the BEMC grant, is one way. Drawing a sketch or making a model works for others.

One of the favorite things we do starts with me presenting a problem, and everyone gets quiet and works on it, whatever way they can, to get to the right answer. Then I pick four or five of them, and one by one they get to stand on a chair, all eyes on them, and they have their moment, where they explain how they solved it. And then the rest of the class cheers for them! At Union Elementary, one of our principles is celebrating others, so we do a house cheer when someone gets something right, or impresses us with an answer. They love it!

They’re practicing their speaking skills, while the rest of the class is practicing being attentive and listening. Then we talk about which methods might be faster or more efficient, so they can try to solve it that way next time. When I first started teaching, I thought everything had to be on a worksheet, but it definitely doesn’t. Being fluent in math and having strategies for solving problems are essential today. Most careers have a STEM component, and critical thinking is important for success in life. They’re building a strong foundation, so they can continue to grow, with only the sky as the limit!”