Math & Movement Blog - Posts for Educators and Parents

05Mar 2020 by Intern No Comments

Cartesian Coordinate Hop Floor Mat

Mat of the Month: Cartesian Coordinate Hop March means standardized testing is just around the corner. Some states began their testing periods this week! So your middle school students will need to practice using a Cartesian coordinate plane. Using kinesthetic and tactile learning techniques turns extra drills into fun math games and activities. It also improves memory, strengthens neural pathways created during learning, and enhances motivation. Math & Movement’s Cartesian Coordinate Hop floor mat uses tactile learning strategies to help students practice their graphing skills. Each mat contains an x-y axis so you don’t have to set one up. Just roll it out and start your lesson! This mat is also available as a desk sticker for individual desk work and group classwork. Kinesthetic and Tactile Learning for Graphing Our…

04Mar 2020 by Intern No Comments

Women in Math Who Really Add Up!

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Women in Math Who Really Add Up! Happy International Women’s Day! Today, we want to celebrate the achievements of women in math. Although many women are enthusiastic about math, women only hold 15% of tenured mathematics positions in American universities as of 2016. Additionally, many girls interested in math and science do not pursue these careers because they face discouragement from peers and mentors. Let’s inspire young women by taking a look at five women in mathematics whose contributions really add up!Sofia Kovalevskaya (1850 - 1891)Born into a family of Russian nobles, Sofia Kovalevskaya learned calculus from a young age by reading her father’s old notes that were used as wallpaper in her nursery. After gaining support from her uncle and neighbor, she went to study mathematics in St. Petersburg and later at…

03Mar 2020 by Intern No Comments

Kinesthetic Learning in the Classroom

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Why Use Kinesthetic Learning in Your Classroom? The current math crisis shows that students struggle to learn math using traditional teaching methods. Rote memorization and practice problems take individual math topics out of context and make later math concepts more confusing. Additionally, many students have a lot of energy that reduces their ability to focus in class, especially if they have been diagnosed with ADHD. But, there are teaching techniques that take advantage of these problems to help students understand math. Kinesthetic learning uses physical activity to teach classroom material and engage students with what they learn. Best of all, it’s easy to integrate into your lesson plans.What is Kinesthetic Learning?Kinesthetic learning, also known as tactile learning or movement-based learning, uses physical movement to teach students new material. These activities…

02Mar 2020 by Intern No Comments

Pi Day Activities and Games For Your Classroom

Activities, Blog

Mathtastic Pi Day Activities Pi Day (3/14) celebrates pi, the mathematical constant used to find the circumference of a circle. When you divide the circumference of a circle by its diameter, the result is pi. As of 2019, Google mathematician Emma Haruka Iwao calculated the value of pi up to 31.4 trillion place values. That’s something to celebrate! Here are some fun activities to teach your class about pi and celebrate its uses! 1. Buffon’s Needle Problem The oldest known game involving pi is Buffon’s Needle Problem. In the 1700s, a French nobleman named Count Buffon observed that a popular game of chance could help calculate the value of pi. To try his experiment, toss some pencils on a sheet of lined paper. Next, count how many pencils you tossed,…

22Feb 2020 by Intern No Comments

After School Program at GIAC

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After School Program at GIAC On October 22, 2019, Math & Movement hosted an after school program for 11 students at the Greater Ithaca Activities Center (GIAC). The goal was to increase student performance and understanding of skip counting and multiplication. As a bonus, students gained extra physical activity throughout the day. Hop To Multiplication! The program started with a pre-test to measure students’ math skills. They then learned two active math movements - basketball and soccer - as a warm-up to learn one-to-one correspondence and skip counting. Students then practiced skip counting by 3’s on our floor mats to solve multiplication problems. They jumped, hopped, and skipped to fill out a practice worksheet. They worked in pairs as part of a flexible grouping strategy, which improves social communication and…

11Feb 2020 by Peter No Comments

What Is The History Behind The Broom Challenge?

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What Is The History Behind The Broom Challenge? It's back again, everybody. The Broom Challenge asks you whether you can balance a broom upright on its bristles. It's swept rapidly through social media, from Tik-Tok to Facebook. It began on Instagram on the 7th, and it exploded with a tweet on the 10th from Twitter user @mikaiylaaaaa, citing a supposed announcement from NASA. Or did it begin here? The same challenge was trending back in 2012, claiming that brooms would stand up on the spring equinox. Many other sources are citing this as the origin of the trend, and calling that the end of it. The Secret History of the Broom Challenge But just a little further back, the idea was alive and well, though it took the form of…

05Feb 2020 by Intern No Comments

CSPAP: How Math & Movement Fits Your Proposal

Blog, Opportunities

CSPAP: How Math & Movement Fits Your Proposal How does Math & Movement fit into the Comprehensive School Physical Activity Programs (CSPAP)? Many schools across the nation have implemented Math & Movement to increase physical activity minutes in their classrooms. Our exercises and activities have been shown to help students become more physically active, which improves their grades, school attendance, cognitive performance, and classroom behaviors. So how does Math & Movement fit into the CSPAP framework? Quality of Physical Education CSPAP guidelines require planned physical activity throughout the school day. Math & Movement is a favorite of many physical education teachers. PE teachers use the Math & Movement Training Manual for K-5 Physical Education as a resource for standard-based activities that are easy and fun to implement. It provides activities and lesson…

01Feb 2020 by Intern No Comments

Throw an Active School Valentine’s Day Party For Your Class!

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5 Active Valentine's Day Games for Your Class! February is here, which means your school Valentine's Day party is coming up. Usually, these parties involve games, activities, and sweet treats. But your class can still stay active and healthy while having fun. Here are some Valentine’s Day class party ideas that will keep your students engaged and learning!Jump Rope for HeartDuring February, the American Heart Association hosts its annual Jump Rope for Heart fundraiser. Students raise money for heart disease research through various jump rope activities. Include some Valentine’s Day-themed activities in their exercises and challenges during gym class, like jumping rope around the gym to see who can collect the most paper hearts!Jump Rope for Heart’s Skipping Skills works well with kinesthetic learning techniques. Your students could jump rope…

13Jan 2020 by Intern No Comments

Math & Movement Ten Frame Desk Sticker

Products

Math & Movement Game Boards Love our full size floor mats but want a smaller version for fun classroom games and activities? Try our new Math & Movement ten frame board game for fun math games and individual desk work. Our math game boards are designed for individual desk work. Each student gets their own reusable dry-erase compatible sticker to practice writing their numbers. They can also practice counting from 1 to 10 by tapping and counting on their desk. How to Use The Ten Frame Game Here’s an addition game to play with our Ten Frame Game Board! Have students write each number from 1 through 10 on their game boards using a dry-erase marker. Call out a number between 1 and 9. Have students draw a dot or…

13Jan 2020 by suzy123 No Comments

School Stair Riser Stickers

Products

Math & Movement Stair Riser Stickers Decorate your school’s stairs with colorful stair riser stickers. Encourage students to practice math, ELA, science, foreign languages, or positive affirmations, on their way to class! In our Math & Movement workshops, we ask teachers to calculate how many minutes they spend walking in the hallway to art, PE, music, lunch, etc. Teachers report that their transition time outside of the classroom is 15-30 minutes each day. However, one study found that some first-grade students spend 25% of their day transitioning between class periods. If the average school day is six hours, students could be spending up to an hour and a half transitioning each school day. That’s 270 hours per year they could be reinforcing their understanding of class content! Why not use…

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