Professional Learning Goals

• Explored how to use math tools in primary classrooms (or outside of the classroom) to support inquiry and problem-solving
• Deepened our understanding of mathematical processes, providing our students with engaging, physical opportunities to demonstrate their math thinking
• Investigated ways to assist students in choosing appropriate and engaging activities during recess, to reduce student conflict and increase physical activities

Activities and Resources

• Searched online for ideas for an outdoor math playground
• Searched online for stencils to purchase or borrow, for painting math tools on the asphalt
• Purchased indoor math tools (see below)
• Prepped the asphalt for painting and applied the stencils
• Group planning of activities for students
• Observations of students using the new math tools
• Sharing of tools, ideas and activities with colleagues and community members

Inside

Graphing mats

Time activity mat

120 mat

10 frame floor mat

Wind-up meter tape

Number line

Display materials for a whole school math showcase interactive bulletin board

Outside

Clock – blank and with numbers

Calculator

Hundreds chart – blank

Wooden Scatter game

Jenga GIANT game

Venn diagram

Number line

Spider game

Yard Dominoes

Sidewalk chalk

Beanbags

 

Unexpected Challenges

Our plan to paint our math tools on the pavement was delayed by an unexpected, late snowstorm. The stencils that we ordered didn’t arrive when expected and by the time we painted outside, there was very little time left in the year for the students to use the math tools and for us to evaluate how effective the project was. However, now that everything is in place, we are looking forward to the fall and starting off our year using the math tools right away with our classes. (Wonderful because every time we worked on our project, we came up with more ideas and many new tools we could use to engage students in math. This did make it difficult to finish the project as we wanted to keep going.)

Enhancing Student Learning and Development

The first recess after stencils were painted, students immediately began exploring different ways to use them.  Our math lessons included more diverse teaching techniques as we were more able to easily meet different Kinaesthetic learning styles:

• Outdoor (fresh air and exercise)
• Able to move bodies in graph – better comprehension of concepts as they are part of the actual graph
• Teaching kids math activities during class time that can carry over to recess (gives kids something to do during recess and then math skills are carrying over to free time)
• Students started exploring on their own
• Better meets needs of students and reaches more learning styles – students look forward to their outside math time
• Enough activities now that each tool can be used as a math centre (students rotate through the centres while teacher works with a group to do guided math)
• More whole school involvement as different teachers take their students outside to do math – planning to do a whole school math play day where we set up each activity as a centre with mixed grade groups of students rotating through each activity as they have fun doing math and collaborating outside
• Becomes an outdoor math classroom

Sharing

• King George VI parents’ Facebook page
• Photos in local newspaper
• Sharing of resources with colleagues within the school and the school board
• Sharing photos with Northwestern Health Unit, who will in turn share with all local schools in their next newsletter

Project Evaluation

At the end of our project, we felt that it made a positive impact on student learning. It was great to see the students excited about having math class outside, and having large-sized manipulatives to use. Students were more engaged and lessons carried over to recess time. We felt that the project made math more visible to students, teachers and community members. The students were beginning to demonstrate a more solid understanding of the math concepts we were working on in class. It has sparked ideas for other ways to get students interested in math and to display math in the school. Our project has also resulted in establishing goals for math in the future.