Making Math Fun

 Last year, one of my most advanced 5th graders came to me and told me he liked my class but hated math.  

"I am so sick of it!  I have to do hours and hours of practice at home.  I can't stand math!"

Yikes, I thought.  This student was only 11 years old at the time, and while he was able to complete problems that an 8th grader could solve, he wanted to avoid math like the plague. 

"Yes, I've seen that too," a colleague of mine chimed in. "There was a student in my daughters class who won all of the Math Olympiad Competitions and awards and was the highest in math. But by the time that student got to high school, they didn't want to take any advanced AP or IB classes.  They were burnt out."

In SAGE class, I try to make math fun and engaging so my students want to try to problem solve and explore numbers.  A few ways I am able to do this is through partner work, problems with multiple entry points and answers, and exploratory learning.  We play games.  We write with whiteboard markers on tables, we build answers, and we talk.    There is no quiet learning in SAGE.   

Sometimes my class is loud, and other times it is messy with math tools all over the place.  Sometimes the students do not want to collaborate, but mostly students want to learn, play, be included and do deep thinking.

The "I do, you do, we do" method doesn't work well for math problem solving.  If a teacher just showed you how to solve a problem and mandates a certain approach, the fun is sucked out.  Who wants to do a puzzle when you already know the answer??

I love coming together and looking at various approaches at the conclusion of a lesson.  I love learning with others and learning from other people.  Math is a social subject, and should be approached as such.

I want my kids to have a lifetime love of math rather than an aversion by the time they hit middle school.  Maybe it is time to stop the timed tests, workbooks, and rote memorization and replace it with math nights, socialization, problem solving, and puzzles.