Miss Younger – Page 10 – Miss Younger's Math Musings

Two Vastly Different Experiences

June 9, 2021June 11, 2021 Amanda Younger No Comments

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/time-to-lead/our-time-to-lead-income-inequality/article15316231/?section=0&autoplay=true https://www.thestar.com/opinion/letters_to_the_editors/2015/04/18/leveling-the-fundraising-playing-field.html Reading these articles, I immediately thought of my experience in the two vastly different schools I have taught in. My first classroom was in an inner-city neighbourhood with a high poverty rate and many refugee families. For many of my families they wanted their children to do well and to be successful but…

Teaching, Teaching Math in BC Elementary Schools

Star Quilt Fractions

June 9, 2021June 9, 2021 Amanda Younger No Comments

I have chosen to adapt a task from Aboriginal Perspectives at the University of Regina this fabulous resource was shared with me by our Aboriginal Support Worker at my school. The resource has many samples of math problems that support authentic and culturally sensitive first people’s perspectives and the BC math curriculum. It was important to…

Supporting ELL Students

June 9, 2021June 10, 2021 Amanda Younger No Comments

My district often runs book studies about various topics, and I participate in the ones that interest me. A few years ago I participated in one on the book “Big Ideas for Expanding Minds” by Jim Cummins and Margaret Early, the book focuses on teaching ELL students in all the curricular areas. At the time…

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Math, Teaching Math in BC Elementary Schools

Embracing Gifted Learners

June 9, 2021June 9, 2021 Amanda Younger No Comments

This is another place where rich math tasks and low threshold high ceiling activities give all students the opportunity to shine and explore. This activity could be extended and built upon for gifted students. The activity below could be extended using drawings, manipulatives or equations depending on what works best for the student. The activity…

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Grade 4, Lesson Plans, Math, Teaching Math in BC Elementary Schools

Extending Thinking Questions

June 9, 2021June 9, 2021 Amanda Younger No Comments

I love the idea of Low Threshold High Ceiling (LTHC) tasks, something that all our students can begin and be successful at but allow students to go as far as they want with their understanding. I’ve noticed that many rich tasks fit this description, students can all find an entry point to the activity and…

Math, Teaching Math in BC Elementary Schools

Math Difficulties and a slight tangent

June 9, 2021June 9, 2021 Amanda Younger No Comments

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/misunderstoodminds/mathdiffs.html https://onq.queensu.ca/content/enforced/536573-CONT930001S21/Module_4/Supporting%20Students%20With%20Learning%20Disabilities%20in%20Mathematics.pdf Reading through these strategies I can for sure say this document will be added to my teacher binder so that it’s at my fingertips at school. So many of the strategies in this document can be implemented as a whole class basis as part of the UDL and RTI frameworks. By using some…

Math, Mathematics Strategies for At Risk Students, Teaching Math in BC Elementary Schools

Growth and Change

June 9, 2021June 9, 2021 Amanda Younger No Comments

I began my first teacher blog in 2014 as a student teacher with my domain name. It chronicled my practicum year and my first months in the classroom. As I’m posting to this blog I am reflecting on how much I have learned since I last posted to that blog in 2017. Reading my old…

Dyscalculia

June 9, 2021June 13, 2021 Amanda Younger No Comments

Dyscalculia was news to me for sure. This is something I’m now wondering about with one of my students who struggles with math and not due to their attitude or effort, they are giving it everything they have but it’s just not connecting, they are on the list for a psychoeducational assessment before the end…

Play with a Purpose

June 9, 2021June 9, 2021 Amanda Younger No Comments

“Play isn’t a luxury. It’s a necessity.” (Mraz, Porcelli, & Tyler, 2016) I really feel that games are an important part of math class and great for practicing skills and building fact fluency. As humans we are hard wired to play and the need to incorporate play has been written about by many authors. One…

Debugging is Part of Problem Solving

June 9, 2021June 9, 2021 Amanda Younger No Comments

For me one of the most valuable things coding brings to math class is the idea of debugging. When code is debugged, you search for the mistakes and correct them to make your code run better, in this venue mistakes are simply part of the process and not as something wrong. We get new releases…

Math, Teaching Math in BC Elementary Schools