pensando en matemáticas

This weekend, I’m much less grumpy than I was last weekend.  This is partly due to the fact that we had Thursday off for Tropical Storm Isaac (which didn’t hit us).  This day was a gift from God that I was able to use to truly rest and recoup from the start of the school year. 

Speaking of school...since I’m predominately teaching math this year, people have asked me to share some ideas that I’ve found work well.  So that is the subject of this post. 

To start the year in all my classes, I’m reviewing basic number skills and concepts before we continue in the curriculum.  One skill that our students especially struggle with is solving word problems.  To try to help the kids understand that each problem is a story that requires thought in order to solve, I had them create their own stories.  So far, I’ve been heavily focusing on the pairs of numbers that add up to 10 (1+9, 2+8, etc.) because this is extremely helpful in developing mental math skills.

So with my 9 year-olds, I had them each randomly choose a number family (e.g. 6, 4, 10) around which to create a word problem.  Then they had to decide whether they wanted to make a story using addition or subtraction of their numbers. I modeled how to turn a number sentence (e.g. 10 – 6 = 4) into a word problem, and then I guided the kids as they wrote their own stories based on their number sentences.  They each wrote a story as best they could; after I checked it, they practiced signing it.  When they were polished and ready, I recorded them on video. Here is Kioney’s story:

I'll show them their videos next week to reinforce these concepts.  Then we’ll show the videos to the other classes to get them thinking about math, too. 

The kids seemed to really enjoy this activity, so it is probably something I will continue throughout the year as they learn multiplication and division facts.  Then at the end of the year, we’ll watch them and see if we can solve them all.     

una tormenta al sur

I found myself drawn to the ocean today; it has always been one of the places where I feel closest to God.  There, I can see His qualities clearly: His power in the wind, His peace in the gentle sound of the breaking waves, His refreshment in the cool water, His infinite being in the horizon, His warm affection in the sunshine, and His vast love in the ocean’s depths.

Today, as a result of a storm to our south, the sea became a manifestation of God’s strength.  Powerful waves crashed on the vacant beach.  The normally calm, clear water was fierce.  The waves broke in shades of brown as the depths were churned to the surface. 

As I stood ankle-deep in the Atlantic, struggling to remain still through the gusting winds, I was reminded that God’s power is made perfect in my weakness.  I stood weak and vulnerable at the edge of an intense and perilous force of nature, yet I contemplated the fact that with God, I have nothing to fear.  I can be as strong as the sea when I put my trust in Him.

oren por mi

Hermanos, oren por mi.

This is a line I often hear from my pastor during the announcement time at church: Brethren, pray for me.  Normally, the pastor’s appeal for prayer refers to his great difficulty remembering names of people in the congregation, but his plea is nonetheless sincere.  I find myself in the same spot today, standing behind the pulpit (sitting in front of my computer), appealing to the congregation (writing a blog) to pray for me.  Like the pastor, I do not come before you with an earth-shattering request.  He asks for prayer to remember names; I ask for prayer to remember God’s peace and to find my sanity. 

As I wrote last week, our school schedule requires that I teach little kids.  This is something I am not used to, but (as Pastor Bob rightly advised) just because this is not my gift does not give me an excuse not to try.  So I am trying my best.  I didn’t think it was possible for me to work any harder than I have for the past two years, but I was wrong.  I’m finding that I have to be way more organized than I’m used to, and I have to have lots of activities planned and laid out before the week begins.  This results in slightly more stress and more preparation time.  So for these reasons, my mind has been a little anxious lately.

Our weekdays are pretty full with school, driving kids home, and after-school care.  We now often have some children stay until 4:30 or 5:30.  Then there’s just enough time to squeeze in a workout before dinner and a meeting or church or something in the evening.

Then, of course, life happens.  Saturday comes, and I get all set to spend hours in my classroom, and instead I find myself cleaning up after people and taking care of other last-minute occurrences.  I know this is a part of life here that we all must deal with, but my mind and body do not have enough spare energy to do this right now.  Then, it’s Sunday, and what I thought would be my day of rest turns into another day of work.  Like I said before, this is nothing earth-shattering, but—brethren pray for me.  The last thing I want is to run myself ragged and spend months sick like I did last year.

So, enough of my complaining.  (I just wanted to paint a picture for people who forget that I don’t have free time to spend lying on the beach.) 

I’ll end on a happy note.  Last week, Laurie, the Schneider family, and I did a 5K at one of the resorts nearby, and I got my personal best time—5 minutes less than my previous best!  Woo hoo!

incertidumbre

We’re finished with our first week of school.  As usual, the year started with special activities—including a Vacation Bible School program put on by a team from Kansas and the ESD Olympics.  We started our first bit of classes on Thursday afternoon, but our first full day of real school was on Friday.

This year our class schedule looks a lot different than it has for the past two years.  Instead of teaching primarily the high school class, I’ll be teaching math, Social Studies, and art to all three age groups of students.  In addition, I’ll teach vocabulary and Spanish to the older ones. 

I’m not sure how I feel about our new schedule.  Right away on Thursday afternoon I found out that I have a lot to re-learn about how to teach younger kids!  I’ve become so accustomed to the teenagers that I’ve forgotten how to approach the little ones.  I felt very unsettled on Friday afternoon after the first full day of switching classes.  This new schedule means that every 45 minutes I see a new group of students, and it feels a lot more segmented and choppy than I’m used to.  I’m not sure if my slight anxiety was due to this change or to something else…

...As of Friday, we have five full-time staff members and only seven students (with the expectation of one more next week). 

We found out this week that two girls that came to school last year will not be attending this year.  This is really frustrating because we saw how much they learned last year, and we could see all their future potential.  Now they will be going to a hearing school with minimal support, and who knows what that will mean for them?

So that accounts for our number of students, and now the staff:  We are happy to welcome a new face, Casey, and a returning face, Stefanie.  We’re excited to have them with us, and we are praying and waiting to see exactly what their roles will be this year.

To have more staff hands than are necessary for our number of students makes me think that God has something in the works for the near future.  More students perhaps?  I don’t know, but I sure am not enjoying this uncertainty!