Skip to main content

Introduction - The Happy Math Teacher

Hello!  My name is Rosemary and I am a retired primary teacher.  I will be writing the math portion of our blogs.  I hold specialist qualifications in Primary/Junior math and in Primary Education.  During my career, I participated in a variety of math-related professional development activities including giving workshops at the board level, attending a week-long seminar on teaching geometry with the MOE, representing our board at a provincial ETFO seminar and participating on the committee to choose a math program for our board.  I have taught grade 3 math for a number of years and participated in EQAO with stellar results. 

Now that I am retired, I am writing math resources, aligned with the new Ontario Math Curriculum 2020 for the primary grades on Teachers Pay Teachers.  These include guided teaching slides, student worksheets and answer pages.  I am a firm believer in hands-on, constructivist-type math activities for students along with math journals and learning how to "explain your thinking".  Still, students need to be able to show what they have learned on paper.  As such, they need worksheets.

Hopefully, I can shed some light on how to engage students in math, develop their skills in problem solving and, most of all, to enjoy math.

For an example of some of my work, check out this geometry unit for Grade 2. 

Grade 2 Geometric and Spatial Reasoning - Ontario Math Curriculum 2020 (teacherspayteachers.com)

                 
                              

 







Comments

Popular posts from this blog

How My Students Really Became Excellent Problem Solvers

Growing up, I was pretty good at math except for problem-solving.  When I think about it, we were just sort of expected to be able to solve problems if we knew the math.  We weren't actually taught how to solve them.  Thank goodness that has changed! Problem-solving is an essential part of mathematics education, and it is a skill that can be developed and nurtured at an early age. In the Ontario math curriculum for the primary grades, problem-solving is a significant focus, with students expected to develop problem-solving strategies and apply them to a range of mathematical situations. Because I didn't think I was good at problem-solving, I made it a priority to learn how to teach it.  In fact, most of my math programming focused on solving problems.  And my students really became excellent problem solvers! This was my approach to teaching problem-solving: Emphasize problem-solving strategies:  Teach students a variety of problem-solving strategies, suc...

Can Music Help Your Students Learn Math?

Many teachers use music in their primary classrooms.  Does it have a place in math?  This blog looks at how I used music to improve student learning in my classroom. One of the research papers I wrote while earning my Specialist in Primary Math was about the link between music and math.  With a background in music, I wondered if incorporating it into my lessons could improve math learning.  I found out that it did! Using Music Improves Mood Music has long been recognized as a powerful tool for enhancing learning and memory retention. Research has shown that when we listen to music, our brains release dopamine, a chemical that is associated with pleasure and reward.  When children are happy, they are more likely to be engaged and learn new information.  As Henry Wadsworth Longfellow said, music is the universal language!          Enhances Memory                         ...

How To Ace Teaching Data in Grade 2: We Make It Easy!

When I taught Grade 2 Data Management with the Ontario 2005 math curriculum, the biggest challenge was mastering the Venn Diagram.  For many students, that was difficult enough, often taking up to two weeks before they were confident in their skill level.  The surveys, tally tables, line plots, bar graphs, and pictographs were based on organizing and displaying data according to one attribute which were demanding enough. Now, as I read through the new Ontario Curriculum 2020 for Data Literacy and Probability, I am struck by the degree of difficulty that the Grade 2 student is expected to understand.  The Venn Diagram is only a small part of it.  How are we expected to teach it?   Students are expected to use  two-way tally tables, Venn Diagrams, and Carroll diagrams for collecting and organizing data. Line plots, bar graphs, and pictographs display two attributes instead of one. Students have to ask survey questions with two attributes such as 1) wha...