Is this creative or ????

[kathymuggle]

: I asked my DS what he did in math today. He told me he had to think of a number, and write something about it.

He wrote: the earths axis is tilted at 23.5 degrees and if you add 2+3 you get 5. Very big applause for him from me!

But....is this a silly assignment? While I appreciate the creativity, it seems kind of strange for a Grade 6 student.Heck, in Grade 7 I clearly remeber doing things like 3X+9=26. Solve for X.

Are we dumbing down our students?

Kathy

[camprunner]

I personally see it as the teacher getting to relate math and numbers to their personal interests. The assignment may have been more of a "getting to know you" type of assignment than anything else. It is helpful for teachers to know their students interests.

[kathymuggle]

True. Sometimes I make mountains out of molehills when it comes to school things (I am working on it, though!) I guess I will have to see how math plays out over the rest of the year.

Kathy

[CarrieMF]

It's the beginning of the year still. The teacher is probably getting a feel for what the kids know & easing them back into it. It'd suck to start off the first few days with the harder stuff.lol

[Momily]

The teacher probably wanted to do a quick "dipstick" on how well the kids could explain their math thinking in writing.

If this were Dec. I'd worry (maybe) but in Sept. I think it's very appropriate.

[kathymuggle]

Thanks all! I have decided that given the time of year it is fine. I will just keep tabs (as I always do) on what is going on in math and see if this is a pattern.

Kathy

[bdavis337]

Personally, I think that's cool! I would love my child to learn to integrate subjects like that - he's already showing me how he "doesn't like" numbers and math (1st grade) and I know he'd benefit from a method of teaching that included more than one "subject" to intro and teach math and numeric skills, and more than just word problems.

I think that also shows the instructor more about your child than JUST his math or numeric skills, and a good teacher is going to be interested in that as well.

[kathymuggle]

bdavis 337:

See my son is the opposite. he dislike writing, and likes "purity" in his math (no sneaky introducing of Language arts into math).

He has the capactiy to do well in math, but that capacity diminishes if the teacher injects a lot of language arts - as his writing is poor.

The flip in our school is not true. Math is not injected into language arts - so it seems the school (curriculum) is biased in favour of writing over math.

In any event all kids learn differently - it is best when teachers do a bit of everything. Pure math for the purists, and intergrated for the intergrated. i hope your son gets some language arts integrated math!

As for today....Today in math they worked in groups. They had to use blocks to create and write a story that solved a math problem.

kathy

[LauraLoo]

I think it would have been interesting to hear what the other kids came up with. Maybe that was the point of the excercise? See how you can spin things a number of different ways? (excuse the pun!)

I had no idea on the tilt of the earth's axis.....I learned something today - and I'll probably remember forever because of the 2+3 = 5......thank your ds for me

[bdavis337]

Writing is highly prized in our school district as well, almost to a fault. They ahve the kids writing sentences and short stories in K, and my son really had a hard time with that at first.

How does your son feel about story/word problems? Hopefully, he'll soon be into the stricter math environment - trig, pre-algebra, geometry - and won't have to integrate so much.