Lower School Math and Science

In November we celebrate Math and Science with two evening events at school:

• Third and Fourth Grades Tuesday, November 11, from 6-7:30 pm
• First and Second Grades on Tuesday, November 18, from 6-7 pm.

Jenell Rubin, Lower School Science Coordinator, and Sarah Kinsella, Lower School Math Specialist will plan an evening of engaging activities so that parents and children can do hands-on math and science together.

I delight in seeing students enjoy hands-on, inquiry-based, and concrete Math and Science. I believe so strongly that learning by doing can powerfully motivate curiosity about and enjoyment of Math and Science.

I stopped by second grade recently to see just such a moment in action. Students pictured below were working in groups to devise different ways of representing data. They had information they had counted (how many pockets altogether on the group members’ bodies including clothing, jackets, and backpacks); they had materials (cubes and paper); and they had ideas – or they generated them! It was fun indeed to overhear how some of the conversations started. “Okay, here’s what I think we should do…”

 

What I appreciated most about the activity was the active thinking generated by asking the students, “How can you represent the information?” Framed this way, students are asked to enter on the ground floor as they enter learning about graphs: how they are made, depicted, represented and used to convey information.