Hi Maria,
On Apr 16, 3:41 pm, Maria Droujkova <
droujk...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Great article, Malke - thanks for sharing! I loved the photos, and
> especially the cool graphic organizers and visuals you use.
>
> Do kids like to use the charts? Does it depend on the person?
What plays out again and again in this program is that teachers are
really surprised when they see how enthusiastic their students are
when it comes to writing about their experiences in Math in Your
Feet. Recording their patterns using the one best word to describe
each category of each beat *is* challenging, but they are motivated
toward accuracy because it is *their* pattern. Also, it usually plays
out that within each team of two, one person is more comfortable in
the 2D realm of the page than the other, and one is more comfortable
moving than the other -- it's a team effort, which makes it more
comfortable for everyone. Once the kids do the tough work to record
their pattern using the descriptive words, it's actually quite easy
for them to plot their feet on the simple grid. I still think there
is a better, maybe more mathematically accurate way to do this, I just
don't know what it is yet!
There are, however, whole groups of kids who still just need the
physical portion of the program (more and more, sadly). These are
kids who never had a chance to develop spatial reasoning in preschool,
for instance. They don't have enough math, even in 4th or 5th grade,
to use the program to take them further -- I find that they begin to
understand the math concepts as if it's the *first* time they've ever
seen or heard about them. In these cases, I require just the minimum
in their workbooks, and I purposefully stay in the physical realm. It
may be the only time they will ever have to just 'play' with math.
One of the reasons I've been so interested in this forum and others
like it is that I want to keep finding the relevant math that extends
the work we're already doing with the foot-based patterns created in
this program. The idea you had about the double lines of symmetry was
really interesting to me, for example, and I want to figure out a way
to make it work choreographically with the Jump Patterns.
Best,
Malke