A Kiss For You!

This morning I was going over multiplication with one of my math groups. After doing some basic drill, we were using individual white boards to practice multiplying multi-digit numbers using the standard algorithm. I would give them the problem and wait for them to do it individually. Then I would do the problem on my own white board using think-aloud, so they could compare their work. They were doing a fine job, and only making a few mistakes.

At one point I went to my desk and wrote a note on a piece of scrap paper: "I am going to do the problem wrong. I wonder if anyone will notice. A kiss if they do!" I then proceeded to do the problem incorrectly. It was just one mistake that I made; I said that 7 x 5 =40. At first no one said anything. Then when I paused, one of them said, "What?" I replied that I would be happy to do it again, and proceeded to do that section of the problem again making the same mistake. This time, they spoke up. I showed them my note and praised them for finding my mistake and handed over a Hershey kiss to each one.

They were thrilled! And so was I. A big part of doing math accurately is watching for and catching mistakes. My initial motivation for this was that I had a bag of kisses in my desk that I needed to use up. I had bought the candy for an activity with another group, and being diabetic myself, had no other use for them. But I was reminded that making a mistake and praising students for catching it is a good thing to do!

There's A Lot of Math in a Tree

On the day before school started, I was asked to teach a last period class for remedial students that would help them improve their math skills in addition to the regular grade 8 math class they already were taking. I welcomed the opportunity and it has been a good experience this fall. But there was no room assigned for the class that first week, so students were told to meet me at the office and together we walked outside to the woods behind the school. I handed them meter sticks and clipboards, told them to find a partner and sent them to measure trees in the woods. They were to find the d.b.h. or diameter breast height. This gave us some wonderful data for reviewing measures of central tendency such as mean, median, mode and range. Using all the data, we were able to make some generalizations about the trees in the forest.

Currently, my husband is in a science/math forestry unit with his seventh and eighth graders. The extension forester comes in and they have been doing some incredible explorations that have captured the students' interest and strengthened their math skills and science knowledge at the same time. They are measuring trees, calculating board feet and projecting the dollar amount that various wooded areas are worth.

At this time of year when the autumn colors are so vibrant, it's nice to find so much math in the trees!