Young Children - March 2008 - (Page 37) Teaching Strategies Here are some strategies that helped make the geometry/poem project successful: 1. Look for ways to integrate literature and mathematics. The children adapted a book’s literary structure to create poems in which they used their mathematics vocabulary in a meaningful way. 2. Offer children several different ways to experience a concept. The children handled and examined three-dimensional models of geometric solids; traced the faces of the solids; went on a shape walk to identify polygons in their environment; and wrote poems to express their mathematics understandings. When teachers offer children varied ways to express knowledge, they increase the likelihood that more children will be successful (Eisner 1998). 3. Extend children’s observations. Effective teachers pose open-ended questions like, “How might we test out your idea?” “How could you show your idea in another way?” “How could you use your idea about patterning as you write your poem?” Such questions build on what children have already learned and challenge their thinking. The more children notice and wonder about, the more opportunities teachers have to extend their learning. 4. Support children in analyzing an author’s writing. Teachers can share books or poems that have an easily identifiable language structure. These children heard the repetition when the teacher read aloud The Important Book, and they noticed the shorter lines of text—two devices they could use in their own writing. One child remarked, “I know you are going to ask us why the author wrote this book. Well, she wrote the book to tell us that everything has an importance.” Good questions posed over time help children to frame their analyses. other children, considered the absence of certain mathematical attributes to be a unique attribute itself. She wrote, “A sphere has zero sides, zero edges, zero faces, and zero corners/vertices.” Children gain a deeper understanding of mathematical terms when they can explain not only what the shape is but also what the shape is not. Nonattributes are in fact important distinguishing characteristics that enrich children’s classification skills (Whitin & Cox 2003). Aaron Aaron’s poem about a cube included only real-life applications. However, in his initial brainstorming he recorded several mathematical attributes: “A cube has 6 faces. 8 edges. A cube is my game cube. You hide in it.” His talk with his mother included even more mathematics observations: “All sides are equal. Cubes are 3-d. Each side of a cube is a square. Cubes remind Mom of a rubix cube.” Aaron began his poem with his connection to hiding and then continued with other real-life associations: “An important thing about a cube Young Children • March 2008 37
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