I am looking at the title of the post and it still looks weird. Out of place. Oxymoronic. Laughter-inducing. Still, after all those nine months in the classroom, I say it out loud (‘I teach Maths’) and I am experiencing another cognitive dissonance. And yet it is all true. I am miss Anka who teaches Maths. Or rather, to be more specific, I am miss Anka who has also taught Maths in this academic year, together with English, ESL, EFL and Art.
But that’s exactly what happened. At the end of August, I got my lesson plan and there it was: year 1 (or year 3 of the British National Curriculum): English and Maths. I decided to just go for it, partially, because it was too late to change things, partially because I was curious and up for a challenge.
Something old
On the one hand, Maths is something that I had done before as somewhere along the way I got to design and teach a programme based on the BNC, Science and Maths, for KS1 and KS2, for two years and yes, I loved it. That I had started from the absolute zero but reading, research and a tiny bit of enthusiasm and creativity helped me find my feet in the area and learn the ropes.
On the other hand, I was not sure. I have not got any formal qualifications in that area and I have never done any courses on Maths methodology. Yes, I do know Maths and year 1 (or KS3) Maths is within my brain’s competence BUT. In a way it reminds me of a situation in which a native speaker of any language says ‘Hey! I am going to become a teacher of this language just because I speak it!’ Well, no. Whether we like it or not, methodology matters. Not all the proficient langauge speakers, not all the talented bakers, dancers, farmers and drivers are great teachers of the subject.
And yet I decided to accept the challenge and dive in at the deep end. I ever have to present an alibi, I will use: my experience with the BNC, all my years in the primary classroom and my general creativity. Plus, the overall results, because I did ‘make my kids know Math‘.
Something new
There were two things that I absolutely loved about teaching Maths this year.
First of all, my kids, all 21 of them were absolute Maths fanatics. I don’t know if kids are like that, in general at the age or whether I was just lucky enough to land two classes full of them but that’s what it was. There were numerous conversations throughout the year along these lines: ‘Miss Anka, what lesson is next? Maths? Hooray!‘ There were often asking about the units that we would cover throughout the year and, quite often, I had no idea regarding the terms they were using because I don’t know them in Russian. When I introduced the topic of multiplication I got a standing ovation in both groups. A standing ovation! That has never happened when I was announcing verb patterns or the Present Perfect…NOT ONCE!
Of course, I am only joking. My kids’ enthusiasm and curiosity and passion for Maths made it all possible and worth it. We went together through numbers, addition, subtraction, multiplication and division, fractions and measuring everything. In English.
The other thing that I absolutely loved in this academic year was the constant challenge for my methodological brain: looking at the coursebook and the material that I was about to teach and forcing my grey cells to find a path and the best way of presenting, explaining, finding the context, finding the words and the steps.
Naturally, there are plenty of resources available (more of that below) but I found out that I am a creative teacher of Maths, too. I did a lot of reading and a lot of thinking and it paid off.
One of my favourite additions to my toolbox were two invisible students, Petya and Alisa, who helped us help them with their issues with Maths and English, respectively, and my students absolutely loved these lessons.
This whole chapter was also very interesting from the point of view of all of the differences with my ‘core’ subjects, English and Art. These two are all about breaking the mould, getting creative, allowing yourself to go over the top. It is a place in which the pigs can be bigger than humans and they can fly, a place in which you are allowed to think of broccoli ice-cream and a place in which any idea IS a good idea. All of these rules do not apply in Mathematics. 2+2 is 4, forever and ever and forever and always and there no debates are going to change it. This is something that we had to learn, too. That it matters not only that you know the final result but that you know how to get there and that you keep the written record of this journey. That all your symbols are matching the international standards and that they are exactly where they should be. I caught myself talking a lot about ‘what real mathematicians do’ or ‘what real scientists do’ to encourage them to follow suit, too. In one of the lessons, I also started to bring up Albert Einstein, first as a joke, but it did stick and it helped to remind the kids of all the little things that matter. ‘Listen, if Albert Einstein came here and saw THAT (the written record of the mathematical operation), he’d cry. Let’s not make him cry. Please!‘ It worked and they were often joking about it themselves!
Something borrowed, something blue
Everyone knows twikl.co.uk so I don’t really need to advertise it. Suffice it to say, Twinkl is the teacher’s best friend and I am nothing but grateful for their handouts and presentations.
Jack Hartman’s channel has been very useful, too. Together, we did a lot of Maths gymnastics and we sang all of the song to practise multiplication tables as ‘You don’t need any tricks. You can multiply by 6!’ We have also loved Maths videos from the Secret Garden channel (such as the one about fractions) and Mr R’s Songs for teaching because ‘My favourite thing is measurement’.
Wordwall also has the maths generator template and we have used it a lot in class and at home and I created lots of games with all the other templates, depending on the topic. Here are some examples: a numbers spinner (‘What do you want?’ ‘How many?’ ‘Is it enough?’), a quiz (‘Which one is heavier?’), ordering (From the biggest to the smallest).
We tried to make Maths a hands-on subject. We ran around the room with a measuring tape, we learnt to understand division while working with pasta pieces, we did the litres lesson in the bathroom and we got to understand addition and subtraction with carry-over thanks to Oreo Cookies. Although the audience did object to the fact that there were no REAL cookies in the classroom.
I think I might actually like being a Maths teacher.
Happy teaching!
P.S. A request!
It is very simple.
I would like to know a tiny little bit more about my readers. There are so many of you, popping in here, again and again, and the numbers of visitors and visits are going up and make my heart sweel with joy. But I realised I don’t know anything about my readers and I would love to know, a tiny little bit more.
Hence the survey.
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