M is for Math

Most of my teacher friends have heard me say at one time or another, "There's a reason why I teach kindergarten math." The fact of the matter is, math has never been a favorite subject of mine, at least growing up. My brain just does not work that way. I have a vivid childhood memory of sitting at the kitchen table while my grandfather "tried" to help me with math. Let's just say he was a very patient man.               

  Do you need an essay written, I'm your go to girl, but algebraic equations? Not so much.When my kids hit high school (maybe even sooner) their math homework became a mystery to me. I'd hear "Mom can you help me with my math homework?" "Nope, go ask dad." It's not that I didn't want to help them...I couldn't! 

Even though I'm not a big math fan, I still enjoy teaching it, at least to kindergarteners! We have a lot of fun with math in my classroom.

One of my favorite lessons to teach each year is the Marshmallow lesson! What's not to love about a sticky marshmallow? Of course my kids would much rather eat them than build with them, so every few minutes I shout out, "you may eat two marshmallows!" They love that! They are pretty creative with their marshmallows and toothpicks and I'm always amazed at the structures they are able to build.

I also love finding fun and interesting ways to teach graphing. We graph everything from gingerbread men, who will win the Superbowl, which of us like Green Eggs and Ham, and how many fish of each color we can catch. I try to make our graphs as fun and visually appealing as possible.

I think the best thing about math is that it's universal. It doesn't matter what language you speak, math is math. I find that those kids who struggle with phonemic awareness, letter id and phonics can be and usually are successful with kindergarten math concepts. Succeeding gives them that little bit of confidence that struggling kids so often need. 

Math makes kids feel smart!