Newsletter March 2022.pdf

From the Biweekly Bulletin
High School teachers may be interested in:
FinLit101
The Canadian Foundation for Economic Education recently launched FinLit101, a free, interactive, online financial
literacy resource designed for high school students and older individuals, available in both English and French. It is self-
paced but can also be used by teachers to complement their instruction. Teachers can register classes and monitor
student work/progress. The initial 10 modules cover 50 financial topics, and the plan is for more to be added over time.
Contact: Barbara McKinnon, Curriculum Consultant, Barbara.mckinnon@gov.sk.ca, 306-787-2334
These modules may be useful when addressing WAM 10, 20 and 30 outcomes
These modules may also be useful in Life Transitions classes.
How about taking time on Pi Day to play some awesome math
games? Here is the link to the games Kirsten Dyck shared with us
Click Here
Check out https://mathequalslove.net/traffic-lights-
game/#More_Games_and_Activities
https://mathequalslove.net/pi-day-dice-challenge/
Math Newsletter March 2022
Happy Pi Day!!
Check out this video to learn how to use
visuals in Polypad to help students make
sense of adding fractions with different
denominators
https://mathigon.org/task/fraction-
addition
Thanks to Jenn Angove for submitting this!

Pi Day is now also International Day of Mathematics!!!
International Day of Mathematics – March 14
March 14 is the International Day of Mathematics (IDM), and the theme this year is Mathematics Unites. The theme
signals that mathematics is a common language in which to find one another. Schools are invited to convey a love of
mathematics by celebrating Pi Day on March 14. Suggestions for possible events and celebration ideas can be found
at www.idm314.org.
Contact: Delise Pitman, Director, Curriculum Unit, delise.pitman@gov.sk.ca, 306-787-5776
Click here to see more
Shout out to Mme. Simard’s class at St.
Michael’s school who solved the
Christmas Puzzle. The CTTCS math
department presented them with
Hershey’s Kisses for the class!

Need more Pi Day ideas?
Join the University of Saskatchewan Arts
and Science Department for some online
activities! (March 15)
In celebration of Pi Day and
the International Day of
Mathematics—both of which fall on
March 14—the Department of
Mathematics and Statistics is hosting an
afternoon of virtual festivities on
Monday, March 15, 2021 (the "Pi-des" of
March).
Program — Monday, March 15
All times in Saskatchewan/CST
3:30 pm: Zoom room opens
3:40 pm: Welcome
3:45 pm: A 3-minute-and-14-second talk by Christopher Mahadeo (PhD candidate)
3:50 pm: Zoom group photo(s)
4 pm: Math & Stats Jeopardy! (organized by MS^3)
Join on Zoom: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85151837976?pwd=SDk3MjY4ZG5aZnBBQVRhSFYwdmF2QT09
Meeting ID: 851 5183 7976
Passcode: 086154
All are welcome! Due to the ongoing pandemic, the event will be hosted virtually. In typical years, participants
have been provided with Pi Day T-shirts, pizza and dessert. To replicate this aspect in a virtual setting, participants
are encouraged to wear their own Pi-inspired attire and to bring their own pizza, pie or other foods. A few group
photos will be taken. (That said, please note that fancy Pi dress
and food are not required. Similarly, turning on your camera
for the group photo is completely optional.)
Math centre and activity ideas from CTTCS Amazing
Educators
Joanie Lebrun, St. Henry’s Senior, uses SeeSaw (free
version) to help triangulate her assessment evidence. Here
a student is uploading a photo of her work with the
webcam in the laptop. The photo is automatically placed on
the page of the task where the student entered the solution and uploaded to the
digital portfolio, which can be shared with parents. Joanie has also embraced
game-based practice in her grade 5,6,7 French Immersion combined grade
classroom. She says this has increased engagement, and most of her students say
Math is now their favourite subject! (some rate it second favourite, behind Phys Ed
😊)

Some of Joanie’s favourite games (In French!) https://laclassedemallory.net/2017/04/26/bataille-de-
fractions/#more-2229 and https://www.learn-with-math-games.com/division-games.html
A couple of Joanie’s favourite resources for meaningful math games: (click image for link)
Making Assessment Criteria Transparent
Do students know what it means to be understanding at a
level 3? Level 4? Can we articulate for them what more is
needed for them to move from a 2 to a 3, or a 1 to a 2?
Here’s a math station where Mrs. Wilkin’s teacher table is
used at the beginning of the unit to go over the CTTCS
rubric, so students are aware of assessment criteria. From
here, students can set goals and understand what they
need to do.
Clothesline math: This is a collaborative task that involves placing fractions and decimals on a number line,
which is in curricula Grades 5 to 9. This activity can be used to order decimals on a number line, order
fractions, or in grade 7,8,9 order fractions and decimals together. For spaced practice, we threw in a couple
negative numbers (this gr 6/7 group had completed their integer unit earlier). As a challenge, we added a
couple negative fractions and decimals! (This is a grade 9 outcome). This activity can be adapted to any
grade level of the outcomes. Some teachers do this activity with a “clothesline” in the classroom, and
students hang their numbers in order with
a clothespin. We did the “low tech”
version—a line drawn on whiteboard and
students with sticky notes, fractions and
decimals hand-drawn and handed out.
Draw the number line with no benchmarks
or only few benchmarks. It is the order that
is important, and a general judgement of
placement, not precise placement. When
students place
3
4
and
6
8
on top of each
other, or
3
2
with 1
1
2
, or
4
4
with 1, we have
worked on equivalent fractions, mixed and
improper, and representations of whole numbers. Students will find that 0.75 lands with
3
4
, and so on.
Students naturally dialog and collaborate. Mathematical processes include communication, connections,
reasoning, representing, and visualizing. Often students come to deeper understanding and better
reasoning in a collaborative activity like this than by doing volumes of independent practice. A full group
debrief, and asking students to explain their reasoning, rounds out this activity by ensuring students think
about all the contributions, not just their own.

Manipulatives: Math centres allow students time to model
number operations with manipulatives. Setting clear
expectations helps students know what to do at a station, how
to problem solve when they are unsure and aren’t able to
interrupt the teacher, and how to complete the task.
Technology can be used to take photos or short videos of
student manipulative work and upload to a digital portfolio or
send to the teacher for assessment purposes.
More games for math centres: Jenn Angove likes “Fraction Formula” for
establishing conceptual understanding in her grade 7 room. Setting up small group
instruction allows the
teacher to differentiate
by meeting with students
in small groups. Individual
white boards are a great
tool for collecting
observational assessment
data. They provide an opportun ity for immediate feedback, allow a teacher to
watch the student work through problems rather than just assess the finished
result, and there is evidence that students take more risks and are more engaged
working on dry erase boards rather than doing all practice in a notebook. A focus
on growth mindset helps students gain comfort with supporting each others’
learning and working through productive struggle.
Math Groups are business as usual in Kayla Cristo’s 1/2 classroom, and she has a great collection of games to
support early numeracy. Kayla is an expert at organizing groups and setting routines. The wooden game
shown here is “Shut the Box”, a favourite for helping students master number bonds
to ten. https://jillianstarrteaching.com/shut-box-building-math-fact-fluency/
Are you doing something neat in your math class you’d
consider sharing with colleagues? The best way we learn is
from each other! I’d love to come to your room and see,
and take some photos, or you could send me some photos
and a little write up. Others would appreciate seeing it!
We are a community of practice!
Interested in getting
math centres started?
I’m happy to come help!
I have a good collection
of resources I can send
your way.

Why manipulatives? First, they build
the conceptual understanding. Some
students easily go to the procedural
math and don’t “need” the
manipulatives (or so we think)….but:
Sometimes what is simple to do as a
procedure can be complex to model, and
with procedure alone we don’t think as
deeply about the mathematics. Second,
they highlight relationships that we will
draw on later. Some students really
benefit from algebra tiles…but not as
much if they haven’t seen area models
with base ten blocks in middle years—
and that can have a lot to do with
understanding binomial squares,
trinomial factoring, and completing the
square. Third, emerging research on
how memories form in the brain indicate
that memories are multifaceted. Each
memory is coded with physical
experiences, and all senses involved in
the experience. The more senses we involve in teaching math, the more solidly we build memory, and
improve recall. Collaborative experiences, movement, textures, and hands on experiences create more
robust memories of mathematical content.
Challenges: Find the blue area These come from Daniel Mentrand https://twitter.com/dment37
Vocabulary instruction is extremely important in math. With increasing numbers of EAL learners in our division this is even
more important! Be sure to have your students create and post vocabulary terms, symbols and diagrams. Encourage
mathematical language. Listen for appropriate terminology. Allow students to use their own words then use that to
introduce vocabulary. Build generative vocabulary…pointing out roots and meanings. Connect vocabulary across
curriculum: What does Quadrant or Quadratic in math have to do with Quadriceps in Health, Health Sci or Phys Ed?
Here is an online interactive maths dictionary:
http://www.amathsdictionaryforkids.com/
Even better: From Learn Alberta
http://www.learnalberta.ca/content/memg/1_A/index.html
Lightbulb moment: Some years ago I was going through some
geometry questions with a grade 10 class. I had a vivacious and vocal
but very collaborative group of boys, who had come through the same
elementary school. The question was this: Are both sets of opposite
angles congruent in a kite? Since the two lateral angles are, students
often mistakenly think the top and bottom ones are also. Some
diagrams show this less obviously than others. As I was explaining the
reasoning to the class, I gave in to listen to the heated dialogue of the
boys. Finally, one student, who was adamant about his answer (which
was correct), turned to his cohorts and said “You can’t fold the
corners, boys!!” I instantly knew what he meant, and so did the rest of
the kids from his school, who nodded and conceded the point.
Who was that teacher that drove this point home so well? Clearly
the paper folding done in middle school stuck with these students as
lasting learning that was easily applied later, and we used that
understanding to move forward with written proofs. That was a
moment of clarity for me. How often do we provide students with
solid connections that follow them year to year? I would have
benefited from the opportunity to dialogue with that teacher, so I
could build on that strong model.
Kids need their hands on math before they
can get their minds on math!

Newsletter March 2022.pdf

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Newsletter March 2022.pdf