Kayla, from K's Classroom Kreations, and I would like to welcome you to this month's Math Tip Monday!
I'm excited to share my spring math idea with you this month. Those of you who have read my blog or used my products know how much I enjoy using poetry in my classroom. While teachers often teach poetry in the springtime, I wonder how many of us think about using poetry in our math instruction. This month, I created a poem that is perfect to use for a spring graphing lesson.
After introducing the poem as part of my Poem of the Week program, I can easily connect the poem to my math lesson. First, my students use the data in the poem to complete a tally chart. Believe it or not, in second grade, I still have a few students who have difficulty with the concept of tallies. We review tallies as a way to record or keep track of our data.
Next, we create a bar graph to show the data. My students love to make bar graphs, so this is a fun activity for them. We then compare the Tally Chart and the Graph to make sure the data matches on each. We talk about the importance of recording accurate data.
Our next step is to analyze the graph. I always start by having students volunteer things that they notice about the data. I find that my students often understand and analyze a graph more deeply when they are asked what they notice, rather than immediately asked to answer questions about the graph.
After our discussion of their ideas, which I note on chart paper, I hand out the questions for independent or partner work. I usually pull a small group of students to work with me.
As a follow-up lesson, I'll have my students go outside with their math journals. We'll observe the creatures around our campus and note how many of each we see. Later, we'll create a graph of our own data and analyze it. Often, I'll have students create their own questions about their graphs. Then, they trade with a partner to answer each other's questions.
Connecting poetry with math is a great way to keep students engaged and to present information in a different way. If you'd like to use this lesson, you can download it for free here.
If you enjoy linking poetry and math, you may be interested in my Math Poems for Fun and Understanding K-2.
If you'd like to find other math poems to link with your teaching, check out these online resources.
Smart by Shel Silverstein
Can Teach Songs & Poems
Greg Tang Math
If you have other poetry and math resources that you use, please share in the comments below.
So that's it for this month. I hope you will check out the other great ideas in our linky by checking out the blogs below.
Poetry & math! Love it! Thanks for sharing! Have a great weekend!
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