Creativity with Maths - Part 1

In my last blog post I shared on how I had trained a group of students as experts, who then taught fractions to other students. The idea was to build a caring and inclusive learning environment where each student's contribution is valued. This has somehow sparked a lot of enthusiasm amongst students. Each student in my class now wishes to contribute in some way and make their mark by teaching others.

Today I started my Maths lesson with a revision on what we had done last week. As we talked and revised what we had learnt, some of the students said that they wanted to teach and help their buddy class all about fractions. Slowly every student got motivated. They said that it was too hard to teach Maths through problem solving and just declared that problem solving worked out well when it was taught by teachers. 
They wanted to make games like the one that I had made for them to learn their multiplication facts- The dart game! They said that they wanted to teach them fractions in a fun way!

It is said that creativity empowers learning! This is exactly what came to life in my Maths class today when the whole class got into groups and designed their own fraction games. They took charge and I just listened to them!

Their starting point was to explore the kind of games they could make?  What resources would they need to make those games?  What knowledge would buddy students need to know in order to play those games? Would they have to teach them halves of numbers before they taught them how to play their games?

As they took control, I stepped back and let go! Because it was driven by them, they came up with fantastic ideas about fraction games. They chose their material and resources, they designed their games and made rules for these games, tried those rules and then amended them. 

By the end of our Maths time we had the following games-

• Fraction game which is a board game played by two students who have to work out the halves and quarters of numbers to win.
• The cake shop - In this game students would have the opportunity to design their own cake using jelly beans. The catch is that jelly beans have to be evenly divided on each fraction of the cake. The cakes would be made of play dough.
• A fidget spinner shop that has heavily reduced prices. Students buying fidget spinners will have to work out the combinations  they could afford to buy with the amount of money they have.
• A fraction spinner - to win this game one needed to spin the spinner and then work out the halves and quarters of a number.
• Students who were working on addition and subtraction of numbers using place values made place value games where students could pull out numbers from the hat and then add or subtract them using place value.

Tomorrow will be a very exciting day for us, as we will finish making our games and then invite our buddy class to play these games. 

I just cannot wait for tomorrow to come!

Creating Classroom Culture

Today was the End of Term 1 and when I look back I think Ashley and myself  have done a lot of things together. But the one that stands out the most is developing a culture of the classroom where everyone is safe to share their ideas. I wanted an environment of trust and acceptance in which students are empowered and feel comfortable to share their ideas with the rest of their mates and their class teachers without being shy or embarrased. Ashley picked up this idea very quickly when she saw me doing the class Treaty that spoke about how to be a team.
Our classroom Treaty is all about how we work together because I strongly believe that behaviour does not remain an issue if there is lots of teaching and learning happening in a class. Bad behaviour sublimes when students are focussed and are intrinsically motivated to achieve their goals. So from the very beginning we talked about what a good team looks like and that if we were  a good team then we would support one another in learning and would also celebrate each others success.

It was obvious that we would make lots of mistakes when learning new things but our mistakes were our opportunities to learn. In the beginning students were a little hesitant to share their ideas. Ashley saw me using the class treaty as a tool to encourage and remind students about achieving  their goals and trying their best. She quickly imbibed this style into her own teaching and took it a bit further into growth mindsets.

 I feel that now our students are more reflective and nonjudgemental if someone makes a mistake. They are developing habits where they are learning to listen to what others say and respect each other's opinion and feelings. I am happy that our classroom is continuously becoming a safe place to explore new ideas and share our thinking about our everyday learning.