Jamie & me at my wedding! |
My "hot read" in my classroom |
One of the easiest ways to incorporate literacy into a math classroom is via read-alouds. Particularly at the beginning of the school year, I think this is a great way to engage students. Kids of all ages (heck, adults too!) enjoy being read to, so setting aside about five minutes of class time for a read-aloud has become a routine in my math classroom. The read aloud can come from a picture book, a novel, a magazine article, a blog post...the options are endless!
To start the year, both as a sixth and eighth grade teacher, I read the book The Math Curse by Jon Scieszka. Scieszka is a hilarious author, and in this book he tells the tale of a young man who thinks his teacher put a math curse on him because he ends up seeing math in EVERYTHING. This book is a math teacher's dream because we are always trying to convince our students how useful math is outside the math classroom. Following the book reading, I have my students write short math stories of their own about a time they were struck with the "math curse" over the summer. Since this is at the beginning of the school year, the purpose of the activity is to get their brains thinking mathematically again, not necessarily to connect to a specific topic of study. Some students write about using math on a vacation, some write about using math when keeping score at a sporting event, and one time a student calculated the approximate number of minutes she thought she spent FaceTiming with her friend. Whatever the topic, this is a great introductory activity to get students reading and writing about math.
Hanging out with Greg Tang! |
David Schwartz is another go-to author for math picture books. G is for Googl is a wonderful resource to keep on hand for read-alouds related to math vocabulary. For each letter of the alphabet Schwartz provides a definition of a math term in "kid-friendly" words, as well as an accompanying visual. From time to time, I start my class by reading a page in the book of a math term related the day's lesson. I then do a quick follow-up activity to have students either create a motion that will help them remember the meaning of the word (we know from brain research that physical activity spurs memory) or draw a picture in the back of their math journal with the word and definition (the back of their math journal is where my students keep their own personal glossary of math terms, in addition to our class word wall, so they have access to the math vocabulary words outside of school as well).
Another one of my favorite books that I just discovered last school year is The Book of Perfectly Perilous Math by Sean Connolly. In this book, Connolly sets up various scenarios in which the reader MUST use math to save themselves from some tragic demise (attack by possessed robot, sucked bloodless by vampires...you know, the usual). This is not a traditional picture book, although it does contain images, and is better suited for intermediate and middle grade students. Because I then have my students solve these scenarios in groups, I usually save these for Fridays when I may be able to afford a little more than five minutes of time for the activity.
There are a plethora of math-related books out there, as well as a ton of internet-based sources, that can work for read-alouds the math classroom. Take a look at the GoodReads "math picture books" shelf for some more ideas. Scholastic also has a helpful web resource for those of you interested in teaching math with picture books.
Do you have other ideas for integrating reading and writing into the math classroom? We would love to hear your ideas!