Artwork from our Grade 1 students learning about Math!
I love math! I love math so much that I have been known to stop customers at the Farmer’s Market so I can give them a lesson on the Fibonacci sequence that is present in the head of Romanesco they are buying. (Go find a head of Romanesco; they’re pretty amazing.)
When I first started teaching, my class was in third grade and I got so excited about them learning a new math concept that I completely forgot to introduce a few steps. I was then faced with a room of twenty-two students looking at me like, “This woman is crazy!” But thankfully I had an amazing instructor in my training, who also loved math, and who’s mottos were, “Go Slow,” and “Confidence, Confidence, Confidence!” He taught me to take my excitement, slow it down and bring out the beauty of math to the children through games, art, building, etc., and it has been such a rewarding experience to watch the students give each other fist bumps for getting their practice work correct or exclaim, “Look Ms. Fluhrer! I have Timothy Times on my shirt today!”
This year I introduced the students to math through a lively group of woodland creatures. Queen Equals, a small mouse, rules the forest kingdom fairly and with kindness. Percy Plus, obviously a squirrel, is in charge of making sure that all the creatures of the forest have enough stores in their larder for the winter, and his kind brother, Martin Minus, is always willing to lend a hand; however, he often loses the items that he has collected. Timothy Times is a sprightly fox with a magical cartwheel that can turn one pile into two just from a couple swift jumps. And lastly, Donovan Divides is a vibrant red dragonfly, who teaches our friends, Sarah and John, how to divide their baskets of apples evenly amongst their friends.
Math can get a bad wrap for being hard, difficult, and boring. I want to bring math to the students of SWS in a way that they can find joy in the challenge of solving the puzzle, which I think is at the heart of Waldorf Education. We educate our students to be critical, independent thinkers that move through the world with curiosity, kindness, compassion and respect, as well as, self worth, so that they are able to solve the problems of the world around them.
Submitted by Sophie Fluhrer, Grade 1 Teacher
P.S.
First ADULT person to guess correctly the exclaimer of, “Look Ms. Fluhrer! I have Timothy Times on my shirt today!”, wins a bar of chocolate from me!