Blog - Math & Movement

05Jul 2017 by suzy123 No Comments

Hopping Towards Mathematical Success

News

“Because movement is such a big part of culture, that’s why we’re using the Math & Movement mats,” says Gina Cordaro, a Rochester City School District teacher helping rewrite the curriculum. Gina explains how the Board of Education came to the decision that the standard Common Core curriculum isn’t helping their students reach their full potential. To support the students that have not responded successfully to the Common Core, Gina has been augmenting their learning with kinesthetic strategies and materials. She has been writing grants and purchasing Math & Movement mats for the past nine years. These days, Gina spends her time holding community math nights at different schools where parents, teachers, student teachers, and, most importantly, the children can jump and learn. The goal is to increase…

30Dec 2016 by suzy123 No Comments

Our Holiday Gift to You! A Lowe’s Toolbox for Education Draft Proposal

Grants, Opportunities

By Suzy Koontz We know you are wildly busy…so we are offering you a special holiday gift! We’d like to draft your Lowe’s Toolbox for Education application so you can easily apply for funding to bring Math & Movement to your school. Why would you want one written for you? How is that a gift??? Many of you on this email list have asked for help getting funding for Math & Movement materials. Lowe’s has been very supportive of this project for many schools in the past so we are helping other schools access this possible funding. If we draft it, you can refine and complete the application in just a few hours of time. If funded, you get to select the perfect materials for your school. Once you are…

20Dec 2016 by suzy123 No Comments

Holiday Multiples

Activities

Students form partner pairs and choose a multiple. Then, they will toss a holiday ornament back and forth to each other while skip counting by that multiple. Students could also toss a dreidel back and forth -- or any other holiday item! See if they can make it through the multiple faster next time!

12Dec 2016 by suzy123 No Comments

When It Is Ideal to Compare Yourself to Others

Research

By Suzy Koontz A very powerful assessment technique utilized by Math & Movement is the process of pre and post-testing participants. This gives us the ability to see how efficient our methods are for the topics covered during a short term event or a longer term implementation of the program in a classroom. This method is terrific for showing how participants improve their skills, but it doesn’t tell the whole story. For that, we need to compare these scores to scores from a control group. While we have known that comparing our participants to a control group is the ideal approach for demonstrating the effectiveness of the Math & Movement program, it has been challenging to get that kind of data; teachers have been overwhelmed with required assessments and we…

17May 2016 by suzy123 No Comments

Do You Love Math & Movement? Join Our Team!

Opportunities

By Suzy Koontz Math & Movement is a ground-breaking new educational program that combines physical fitness with learning and practicing math, reading, and other concepts. In just a few short years, Math & Movement has branched nationally and experienced exponential growth. Math & Movement is hiring part-time educational consultants. The time commitment can be low (a few hours a month) or high, depending on your schedule. You do not have to re-locate – you serve your community and nearby areas. You may also have the opportunity for national travel to present at conferences and offer training to teachers. Following are some of the paid opportunities offered to Math & Movement Consultants. A Math & Movement consultant: Leads Family Fun Nights Offers Math & Movement training for teachers/administrators Makes Math &…

17May 2016 by suzy123 No Comments

Take It Outside!

Activities

Pick a multiple and practice skip counting by that multiple while taking turns tossing the water balloon back and forth to a partner. If you drop the water balloon and it breaks, you have to do jumping jacks while skip counting by that multiple all by yourself.

02May 2016 by suzy123 No Comments

Finger Speed-Sums

Activities

The class breaks into partners and each partner has one hand behind their back. On the count of three, they each put forward some number of fingers. Whoever says the sum of both players' fingers first wins. Then the pair breaks up and each person finds a new person to play with. Older players can multiply instead of add.

02May 2016 by suzy123 No Comments

Only ONE MORE Free Live Teleconference Training

Opportunities

By Suzy Koontz This Tuesday at 3 p.m. Eastern time (2 p.m. Central) is your last chance for a live interactive teleconference training sponsored by the Osborne Foundation! Come get your questions about kinesthetic learning answered. Get feedback about how to customize kinesthetic learning for your classroom! Don’t need help, but more ideas are always welcome? The teleconferences have been recorded so you can listen at your leisure! You will get quick new tools that will help you rapidly enhance your students’ success. In 2015, the National Math Foundation (NMF) received funding from the Weldon F. Osborne Foundation for training support for teachers. As part of this grant, NMF contracted with Math & Movement to offer 16 FREE teleconference trainings beginning in January 2016. The final call is this Tuesday,…

19Apr 2016 by suzy123 No Comments

Buddies

Activities

The teacher calls out a number (four), and the students have 10 seconds to get themselves into groups of that size. It might be impossible for everyone to get in a group every time, but each new number gives everyone another chance. In the beginning, just call out single numbers. Once students get the idea, you can call out addition or subtraction problems (“get into groups of 7-4.”)

18Apr 2016 by suzy123 No Comments

Math & Movement Math Buddies

News

By Suzy Koontz You’ve probably heard of Each One Teach One, a classic teaching strategy where a student learns a new skill and then teaches that skill to another student. It’s a great way to engage all students in learning and to help solidify the new knowledge for the students. Math & Movement took this model up a level by creating a program called Math Buddies. In Math Buddies, the teacher teaches her classroom math skills using the Math & Movement mats. The teacher then takes his students and the Math & Movement materials and goes to another classroom, usually younger students/lower grade level students, and his students teach the other students the same information. Just like when they learned it, they use movement and fun to reinforce the material…