Category: making

How Moving Patterns was made better by colleagues

On By MalkeIn first steps, language, making, math ed, Math in Your Feet, moving math, scale up, UncategorizedLeave a comment

[ Go Straight to the Kickstarter https://bit.ly/MPKickstarter

MP.2 (2)Sooo…I have been bringing percussive dance and math  together into elementary classrooms for over 16 years. During that time I’ve shared my approach to whole-body math learning with my book Math on the Move: Engaging Children in whole body learning. book Published by  Heinnemann. learning in 2016. 

The last few years I’ve focused on re-imagining my flagship program Math in Your Feet™ to make this school day program more accessible to teachers, parents, and caregivers than I could ever reach one classroom at a time…and the Moving Patterns Game was born!

My advisers in this game making endeavor include:

  • Max Ray-Riek (@maxrayriek) who did some awesome brainstorming with me around the mathematical content.
  • John Golden (@mathhombre) who helped  me with making it a real game! 
  • Finally, I am indebted to Christopher Danielson (@Trianglemancsd) and the awesome volunteers at the  Math on a Stick exhibit at the Minnesota State Fair over the past few years. 

Here’s how the game works in a nutshell…

The Moving Patterns Game is an active, self-directed game featuring patterns, footwork, friends, and math. Dancing makes life fun, and math makes the dancing more interesting! This playful and creative body-based game challenges players to collaboratively decode and dance a series of footwork-based “maps” (called Pattern Cards.)

Blue Cards

The blue Pattern cards function as little footwork “maps” that show the player how and when to move their feet.

OrangeCards1 (6)

The orange Challenge cards provide mathematical prompts for making the footwork maps more interesting and changing each pattern in some way, leading to the creation of new footwork based dance patterns. Paired together they become potent choreographic prompts where players can literally play around with both math and dance at the same time.

About the Game:

The Moving Patterns Game is based on a style of dance called “percussive dance” where you make rhythm and patterns with your feet at the same time. Percussive dance includes tap dance, step dance, clogging, and many other foot based styles.

I am acutely aware that I bring the two most anxiety producing subjects together but don’t let that get in the way of a playing a really fun game!  If you are not sure about how it works, please know there will be a number of supports provided along the way will be a variety of supports to help you learn how to play the game, especially an online instructional video and the Facebook Group Moving Patterns Game Support. |You can join the group any time. Check it out now!! Hope to see you there!

Malke Rosenfeld is a percussive dance teaching artist, Heinemann author, editor, math explorer, and presenter whose interests focus on the learning that happens at the intersection of math and the moving body. She delights in creating rich environments in which children and adults can explore, make, play, and talk math based on their own questions and inclinations.

Moving Patterns Sneak Peek!

On By MalkeIn making, math ed, Math in Your Feet, moving math, scale upLeave a comment

Moving Patterns is an active, self-directed, creative body-based game featuring patterns, footwork, friends, and math. Dancing makes life fun, and math makes the dancing more interesting! 

The Moving Patterns Kickstarter goes LIVE on July 14, 2020!  While we wait for Launch day I thought I’d give you a sneak peek of the graphics that make up the core of the game.

The blue pattern cards function as little footwork “maps” that show the player how and when to move their feet.
The orange challenge cards provide mathematical prompts for making the footwork maps more interesting and changing each pattern in some way, leading to the creation of new footwork based dance patterns. Paired together they become potent choreographic prompts where players can literally play around with both math and dance at the same time.

Why not sign up at http://movingpatternsgame.com/ to get a quick update in your inbox on launch day!

And don’t forget to watch the video, below!

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Featured

Sign up for the Moving Patterns Game!

On By MalkeIn first steps, making, math ed, Math in Your Feet, moving math, scale up, spatial reasoning, Uncategorized1 Comment

MP.2 (2)

Hey everyone! I hope you are all well and weathering our current situation. I am continuing to develop ways to bring math and movement together both indoors and outdoors. If you are a member of the Math on the Move Book Group or the group Moving Patterns Game Support on Facebook you will have seen some of my posts about how the game is really the first step to learning about working with math and moving bodies at the same time.

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What I noticed during the game pilot at the Boys & Girls Club is that once kids get the hang of the footwork they can basically figure out how the game works. It’s at this point that they start to take ownership of the game.  I won’t be able to be back in real-life classrooms for a while but I know that the current supports in place (links above) will be a good proxy  as we move forward.  If you haven’t yet signed up for the FREE Moving Patterns Game Starter Kit why not try it out? 

SIGN UP for GAME UPDATES & STAY WELL! 

Malke Rosenfeld is a dance teaching artist, author, editor, math explorer, and presenter whose interests focus on the learning that happens at the intersection of math and the moving body. She delights in creating rich environments in which children and adults can explore, make, play, and talk math based on their own questions and inclinations.You can find out more about her work at malkerosenfeld.com,  on Twitter,  Instagram, or Facebook.

Introducing the Moving Patterns Game!

On By MalkeIn first steps, making, math ed, Math in Your Feet, moving math, scale up2 Comments

I’ve been a little uncommunicative on this blog lately but for good reason. I’ve been hip deep in developing my new game based on my flagship program Math in Your Feet. The Moving Patterns game is an active, self directed game about about patterns, footwork, friends, and math. Dancing makes life fun and math makes the dancing more interesting!

Back in February I did a three month pilot at a local Boys & Girls club and I was completely thrilled to see the game in action and looking almost exactly the same kind of activity from the kids…EXCEPT in an even more self-directed manner than the school-based version! Program Director Lauren Hong commented on the many gains and successes  in children who participated in the Moving Patterns pilot:

The Moving Patterns game has has subtly worked its way to the heart of the Crestmont Boys & Girls Club and is transforming our members step by step. I have seen individuals on the edge of an emotional eruption be convinced to try their hands (feet) with the game and have witnessed the shift to positive engagement and pride at making up their own dance steps and accomplishing the games various mathematical challenges. The Moving Patterns game is fun, interactive and engaging.”

MP picture resizedThis playful and creative body-based game challenges players to collaboratively decode and dance a series of footwork-based “maps.” Challenge cards add a variety of mathematical challenges along the way to enhance game play and the development of original new dance patterns.​ Moving Patterns is based on a style of dance called “percussive dance” where you make rhythm and patterns with your feet at the same time. Percussive dance includes tap dance, step dance, clogging, and many other foot based styles.

An early version of the game will be out around (American) Thanksgiving. If interested, you can add your email to: http://bit.ly/movingpatterns for updates about the game, including when the instructional video piece is online (hopefully some time in Spring 2020.) I am also planning  a variety of teacher and parent supports. This project is the culmination my work in and around educational settings since 2002. I’m thrilled to be getting this game out in the world!

Malke Rosenfeld is a percussive dance teaching artist, Heinemann author, editor, math explorer, and presenter whose interests focus on the learning that happens at the intersection of math and the moving body. She delights in creating rich environments in which children and adults can explore, make, play, and talk math based on their own questions and inclinations.You can find out more about her work at malkerosenfeld.com,  on Twitter,  Instagram, or Facebook.

 

Inside the Whole-Body Newspaper Build Project

On By MalkeIn making, math ed, moving math1 Comment

IMG_2906A few months ago I was asked by a school district to develop a pre-workshop workshop (yes, you heard right!) for 100 (!) 4th and 5th graders from six different elementary schools. I was brought in to design a pre-contest project that would focus on the process of collaborating in a making setting. This, in turn, would set the scene for an afternoon of collaborative Rube Goldberg Machine design and testing.

I knew exactly what I would do! For the most part, math activities and building projects are either on the page or explored with the hands. There’s nothing wrong with this, but I knew from my work developing and fine tuning Math in Your Feet that a scaled up, whole-body activity provides some mighty opportunies for talking, negotiating, learning, and working together.

We divided the kids, who, for the most part, were meeting their group members for the first time, into 20 groups of five. Each of the 10 adult chaperones were tasked with keeping tabs on two groups and providing ocassional check-ins. Once the kids were organized, I gave them a challenge:

Using the newspaper rolls and blue tape, work together with your group to build a structure that can 1) stand up independently of human support and 2)  be big enough to hold at least one or two group members, either sitting or standing inside the structure.

During the workshop I scheduled three formal moments for the groups to pause their activity and reflect with their teammates about aspects of their communication and the building process. The lesson plan has all the details.

Build 1

As part of my planning I decided that if we were going to do a project with this many kids I really wanted to have a detailed understanding of what they thought about the process. I knew that the workshop itself would go well enough because I’ve done this before at a smaller scale. However, I wanted their final activity of the build to be focused on personal written reflection. I wanted to gauge the overall dynamics and, hopefully, get some “data” on what nine and ten year olds might take away from a workshop that is intentionally focused on collaborative learning and making at the same time.

I was not disappointed! Below you’ll find their responses to three reflection prompts. The first reflection prompt was so rich I decided to break it into three parts. Responses to the final two reflection prompts follow after.

A NOTE ON CHANGING SCALE 
Kids are used to building with their hands. Legos, Kinex, marble mazes, etc. provide ample opportunity for literally building spatial reasoning which is the foundation of mathematical thinking. The newspaper rolls are one large sheet of newspaper rolled on the diagonal and can create a potent creative constraint requiring inginuity and collaboration. Their reflections, below, will give you a good sense of this.

What did you notice about the building process? [3 Sections]

NOTICING THE BUILD PROCESS

  • I noticed in the building process that the structure was too short for Livie to fit in
  • I noticed we did not build the structure like we said we would
  • I noticed that the newspaper rolls wouldn’t stand up still [by themselves]
  • We used a lot of tape and used 25 newspaper rolls
  • The building process took a while but it didn’t take forever
  • [I noticed] that it is pretty hard to build something big
  • It was difficulat to keep the newspaper from falling down
  • We added as we built so we could fit more people [into the structure]
  • I noticed it was in stages
  • Our ideas got different throughout the building time
  • I noticed that one side wouldn’t stay up until we made the other sides
  • That a cube won’t just hold by itself
  • That it wouldn’t stand at first but then when we put more newpaper rolls and tape it finally stood up without us holding it
  • The plan changed a lot throughtout the process
  • It was very tilty and frustrating
  • I noticed that the project isn’t as easy as you think
  • It was frustrating, and hard to do
  • It was challenging but fun
  • Pretty hard until the end
  • We just added as we went

NOTICING COMMUNICATION

  • I saw that people did what they wanted, not what we said/suggested. It just went right over their heads.
  • We were a quiet group and we started talking near the end
  • It was bad because they kinda ignored me
  • I noticed that communicating was a HUGE step of this process
  • It was fun!

NOTICING COLLABORATION

  • If teamwork worked and everybody was not goofing around our tower would have worked and it would have been a lot easier
  • I noticed that it was fast, fun, cool and nobody got mad, and I made friends
  • That having a group is very helpful
  • I noticed certain people helping, giving ideas, saving the thing that we were building [from falling down] and making new friends.
  • It was challenging and exciting
  • We made a teepee structure
  • I noticed that the building process was hard and easy depending on what we were doing
  • I noticed that everyone wanted to achieve the same thing. We worked well and let everyone do something!
  • We let everyone say what they thought should be added or fixed
  • We were working together and sharing ideas to each other
  • Everybody got the chance to help in the building process, we all built it
  • While building the structure we all agreed on things
  • What I noticed about the building process is that if you work with a team it is more fun
  • I didn’t feel heard because some of the my group kind of ignored what I said.

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Would things have been easier or harder if you hadn’t been required to collaborate in a group?
  • It would be easier to do by myself because I don’t have to talk to other people
  • It would have been harder to hold  [the structure] steady while putting on the tape
  • [My role was] holding up things. I felt heard by all of the different group members because we all got a chance to talk.
  • It would have been hard to come up with the ideas, and hard to hold up stuff
  • It would  have been easier if we didn’t collaborate as a group because nobody would knock [the structure] down
  • What would’ve been harder was to tkeep it standing on its ownwhile I added supports
  • It would be easier if you did it on your own with your own creativity
  • The building structure would have looked more like what I had in mind
  • I like to work by myself
  • Harder, because without teamwork I would not have the great ideas. Everything would have been harder without a group because it’d be more work and less fun.
What was your role in the building process? Would you have liked a different role? Did you feel heard by the other group members?
  • I felt like I did everything
  • I did tape and I liked it. My group members let me choose where to put the tape and everyone had a voice in the building/design process.
  • I felt heard because everyone held where I assigned them to and let go when I asked them to.
  • I felt heard a lot because all of our thoughts were put into this
  • We sometimes changed the roles so everybody else got the chance to do something
  • My role was the tape. I felt heard by the others in the group because we were giving our opinions
  • I did not have a role because everyone else was doing everything
  • I felt bad they would not try my ideas
  • My role was to stay in the middle with or without Izzy, and we did it and built our house. I wish I was in the middle because you don’t have to do much work
  • My role was to help tape and come up with some ideas a bout how to keep it standing
  • I was building like everybody else. I felt heard by everyone. They listenend to my ideas and put them into action.
  • We actually all switched roles at different times

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I’m thrilled about how seriously the students took the final written reflection because it provided great insights into what was happening inside each group. As I anticipated, some groups worked well, some didn’t; some kids felt heard, some didn’t. Some kids like working alone and others like working in a group. What’s clear to me, however, is that collaboration is pretty much a skill that needs to be intentionally developed.

On thing I wonder is how this activity would have played out if it had been a group of kids who actually knew each other. If you’re interested here is the full lesson plan.  Let me know how it goes!

Malke Rosenfeld is a dance teaching artist, author, editor, math explorer, and presenter whose interests focus on the learning that happens at the intersection of math and the moving body. She also delights in creating rich environments for math art making in which children and adults can explore, make, play, and talk math based on their own questions and inclinations.

The Cognitive and Intellectual Aspects of Dance (and math)

On By MalkeIn first steps, language, making, moving mathLeave a comment

Dance Magazine recently published an interesting article titled: “Don’t get It Twisted: Dance Is An Intellectual Pursuit and parts of the article really resonated with my approach to combining math and dance. Below are some excerpts from that article interspersed with related #movingmath posts from this blog (bolding mine).

People have a tendency to think of dance as purely physical and not intellectual. But when we separate movement from intellect, we are limit what dance can do for the world. It’s not hard to see that dance is thought of as less than other so-called “intellectual pursuits.” How many dancers have been told they should pursue something “more serious”? How many college dance departments don’t receive funding on par with theater or music departments, much less science departments? Perhaps that’s because dance only leaves behind traces. The words and decisions that go into making dances have a hard time being accounted for, and choreographic notes and videos cannot fully capture a dance work.

Dance depends on the presence of the body. Unfortunately, it’s difficult to explain to non-dancers how corporal movement is a means of thinking and engaging with complex ideas. That’s why it’s so important that dancers can talk or write about their work, translating the corporal knowledge into language.

When we acknowledge that our bodies think, move, translate, react—often in conjunction with linguistic thought or prior to it—we can use dance as a tool. 

Related: When the Movement IS the Reasoning Tool | What does it look and sound like when kids use their whole bodies during a math lesson? What happens prior to, during, and after the activity? Luckily Deb Torrance and Lana Pavolova have provided us with some stellar documentation so we can get a closer look at what happens when we give kids a mathematical challenge to explore with their whole bodies.

Linguistic Intelligence Has Its Place in Dance, Too
That’s not to say that language isn’t part of dance. Choreographers craft dancers’ intentions and movements with words, images and metaphors. Even in improvisation, a director dictates a score, and dancers translate the imagery into corporal form. When choreographers layer dance and words, it engages the audience in new ways. As Bill T. Jones explains, “You see one thing and you hear another thing, and then the audience puts together what they mean.”

Related: Learning Math by Ear: The Role of Language in a #movingmath classroom  | “Comprehension of a word’s meaning involves not only the ‘classic’ language brain centres but also the cortical regions responsible for the control of body muscles, such as hand movements.” To me this study explains part of why a “moving math” approach that includes a focus on math language used in context can open up new pathways for our learners.”

Dance Can Help Us Better Understand Our World
Many choreographers use dance to shed light on today’s most pressing topics. Some use dance in conjunction with social activism, like Ananya Dance Theatre’s Ananya Chatterjea, who recently created Shyamali as a tribute to women across the world who have stood up against oppression. Others explore the nuances of science: Michelle Dorrance’s Myelination, for example, translates the biological process of a myelin sheath forming around a nerve into tap dance. Not to mention artists who use their dance practice as research, focusing on the process of dance making to explore a question or subject…

Related: Leaving Room for Question Asking | “It’s these questions, arising in the moments when they’re needed, born of collaboration, that help learners notice structure and pattern and purpose in what they’re doing. From there we can move to the more formal learning. But… I think kids in general are most motivated when they are provided agency by the adults in their lives. Their work may not be technically perfect, but they are in the best part of learning (to me, anyhow): inside the flow of an investigation filled with their wonderings.”

Dancers Connect Multiple Parts of Ourselves
Dance intertwines the cerebral, physical and emotional; science tries to unravel the connections between these. Dance uses these inherent connections to delve deeper into our humanity, and create new ways of reflecting on the world. In that way, dance is a crucial tool in intellectual pursuits.

Related: Learning Without a Body |”The body is not simply a vehicle toward realizing the perceived pinnacle of abstracted knowledge housed in the mind.  The body is where learning originates. Living in a body is also the way children learn personal agency as they make decisions about how their bodies will move and act and how that power can influence and shape their world. And, in the process, learning that there are obvious consequences and responses in relation to their actions. This is literally and viscerally democracy in action.”

Malke Rosenfeld is a percussive dance teaching artist, Heinemann author, editor, math explorer, and presenter whose interests focus on the learning that happens at the intersection of math and the moving body. She delights in creating rich environments in which children and adults can explore, make, play, and talk math based on their own questions and inclinations.You can find out more about her work at malkerosenfeld.com,  on Twitter,  Instagram, or Facebook.

Prepare to be Inspired! New Math & Dance Resources from a Canadian School Board to Help Guide Your Way

On By MalkeIn book study, language, making, math ed, Math in Your Feet, moving math, scale up, spatial reasoningLeave a comment
Canada 2

During the fall and winter of the 2017-18 school year teachers and students in the Kawartha Pine Ridge District School Board (KPRDSB), Ontario, Canada took the plunge. Using Math on the Move: Engaging Students in Whole Body Learning they bravely began the process of bringing math and dance together into the same learning context. Mary Walker Hope, who spearheaded the process, invited me to observe and celebrate the final presentations of children in grades one through eight. During my video chat observations I was incredibly inspired to see how the process laid out in Chapters 4 & 5 of Math on the Move had supported both children and teachers alike.

At the very end of their math and dance project Mary created three individual e-books recounting their work, with a special emphasis on the process. She writes:

Through integrating math and the arts, we engaged our students as inquirers, collaborators, creators, problem solvers, artists, dancers and mathematicians.

We began our journey from a creatively curious stance and with humility. We inquired, persevered, and solved. We learned how to teach math through dance and dance through math. We discovered through our collaborative inquiry that math, dance, language, music, and art are as interconnected as the processes we use to understand, solve, and create.

These three e-books are divided by grade band and FULL of documentation of their math/dance making process from start to finish including:

  • Introductory activities
  • Insights and encouragement for teachers around negotiating math and dance in the classroom at the same time
  • Details about what each step of the process looks like in each grade band
  • Lots of videos illustrating a variety of student work
  • Step-by-step examples of the making process
  • Examples of what they did to apply, extend, reflect, and assess the math/dance work
  • Finally, these e-books provide an overall positive and encouraging message for teachers who might be ready to jump in to #movingmath!

These are real kids and real teachers making gorgeous math and dance.  YOU CAN TOO!

The books are linked below. You might also be interested in another post on this blog inspired by the Canadian crew called “Why Math in your FEET?” which provides an explanation of percussive dance and the different kinds of sounds you can make with your feet while dancing.

Teaching Math AND Dance! Primary edition Gr. 1-3
Teaching Math AND Dance! Junior edition Gr. 4-6
Teaching Math AND Dance! Intermediate edition Gr. 7-8
canada 3
Photos courtesy of Mary Walker Hope

Malke Rosenfeld is a percussive dance teaching artist, Heinemann author, editor, math explorer, and presenter whose interests focus on the learning that happens at the intersection of math and the moving body. She delights in creating rich environments in which children and adults can explore, make, play, and talk math based on their own questions and inclinations.You can find out more about her work at malkerosenfeld.com,  on Twitter,  Instagram, or Facebook.

Why Math in Your FEET?

On By MalkeIn first steps, making, moving math2 Comments

In Chapter One of Math on the Move: Engaging Students in Whole Body Learning I share a little of the history of how I developed Math in Your Feet and also describe how, in the years before making the connection between my dance style of percussive dance and mathematics, I worked to support children in becoming dance makers using the elements of this not-quite mainstream dance form. So what is this percussive dance and how does it connect to math and, most puzzling, why do we need to use our feet?

This question about feet came up a lot during almost weekly Skype sessions with the amazing Mary Walker Hope in Ontario, Canada. In January 2018 I was lucky enough to get a peek at the awesome Math in Your Feet patterns and footwork resulting from a 2nd through 8th grade exploration in her school board. I figure that  others may ask this “Why are we using our feet?” question from time to time so in this post I’d like to elucidate the “feet” aspect of the math and dance that we make while creating patterns with our feet in Math in Your Feet.

First of all, there many, many (MANY!) different dance styles in this world. Some of them are percussive (rhythm based) and some of them are not. Sometimes they’re a combination of both. Percussive dance is probably best known through the international performance phenomenon called Riverdance which features Irish step dancing. You might also be familiar with percussive dance through all those tap classes either you or your kid took at some point.

posters pattern properties and turns 2017-1

The main focus of percussive dance styles is to be a rhythm maker using different parts of your feet. The Pattern Properties I created lay out the basic elements of this kind of dance, similar to what creative movement is to modern dance. To answer “why feet” look at the Movement category of the Math in Your Feet Pattern Properties chart on the left. Each movement has a clear sound associated with the movement. Making sure you produce that sound is one aspect that makes this kind of dance so satisfying. In the chart below I’ve provided some information about how these sounds are made.

Pattern Properties description FINAL
So, there you have it! Making patterns and sounds with your feet is fun and satisfying, not to mention mathematical!

Malke Rosenfeld Cropped.jpgMalke Rosenfeld is a percussive dance teaching artist, Heinemann author, editor, math explorer, and presenter whose interests focus on the learning that happens at the intersection of math and the moving body. She delights in creating rich environments in which children and adults can explore, make, play, and talk math based on their own questions and inclinations.You can find out more about her work at malkerosenfeld.com,  on Twitter,  Instagram, or Facebook.

Leaving Room for Question Asking

On By MalkeIn making, math ed, moving math, scale up, spatial reasoning1 Comment
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NOTE: This post was originally published at my other blog  April 15, 2017.

How much of the math you do in your classroom is based on someone else’s questions? Someone far away from your classroom? Someone other than your students? Even with specter of standardized tests looming like dark, heavy clouds, how can we leave room for the most important part of learning: question asking?

“So many of the things that we do in math education — and maybe more generally in education — are giving students answers to questions that they would never think of asking. By definition, that’s what it is to be boring. If you’re sitting at a bar and someone’s telling you stuff that you’re not interested in and you would never think of asking about — what is more boring than that? That seems to be the model of our educational system: ‘Here’s the formula for the cosine of the double angle.’ ‘Well, I don’t care about that.’” —Steven Strogatz

The first time I experimented with building scaled-up geometric forms I was homeschooling my then-seven-year-old. At the time she was a “resistant” learner which basically meant she was happiest exploring her own questions, and, over a couple years of homeschooling I realized my best strategy was to influence the child by way of my own curiosities and the way I structured the environment, leaving out provocations to be discovered and, if of interest, investigated.  This was also a time when I was deep into finding answers for my own question “What is math?” and I was heavy into an investigation into Platonic Solids. I had never been a builder as a child, but I had a question and it needed to be answered.

Back in April, on Twitter, I had a conversation with Lana, a third grade teacher who is reading Math on the Move and who has been wondering about how how to “scale up” her students’ mathematical activity.  Specifically she’s been curious about my recent work with building body-scale polyhedra.  Body- or moving-scale means that the whole body/person is engaged in problem solving and mathematical thinking to investigate a mathematical challenge or project of some kind. I think Telanna’s question could be anybody’s question who is wondering how we can do math off the page.

My answer focused on how I structure a making activity and the learning environment in a way that motivates learners to collaborate and ask new questions in response to the activity in an intrinsic way.

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It’s in the process of making something with the freedom to try things out and see where it gets you that creates new questions.

It’s these questions, arising in the moments when they’re needed, born of collaboration,   that help learners notice structure and pattern and purpose in what they’re doing. From there we can move to the more formal learning. But, like my daughter, I think kids in general are most motivated when they are provided agency by the adults in their lives. Their work may not be technically perfect, but they are in the best part of learning (to me, anyhow): inside the flow of an investigation filled with their wonderings.

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To bring kids to math we need to leave room for their own questions.

What happens next? There are more questions to be asked about this kind of approach. I have  my answers and am happy to share them. But I’d love to hear your questions first!

Malke Rosenfeld is a dance teaching artist, author, editor, math explorer, and presenter whose interests focus on the learning that happens at the intersection of math and the moving body. She delights in creating rich environments in which children and adults can explore, make, play, and talk math based on their own questions and inclinations.You can find out more about her work at malkerosenfeld.com,  on Twitter,  Instagram, or Facebook.

Notes from a #movingmath Summer Classroom

On By MalkeIn making, math ed, Math in Your Feet, scale up, spatial reasoning2 Comments

I am so excited to share the work of Lisa Ormsbee at Fairhill School in Dallas, Texas  who has spent the past two weeks running a math and movement summer enrichment camp using resources from Math on the Move, the Move with Math in May lesson plans, a rhythm-based exercise program called Drumfit, and a lot of other great ideas she pulled together to meet the needs of her students through rhythm and movement. She has ten students with most of the students “learning different” (e.g. dyslexia, dysgraphia, ADHD, mild autism, and selective mutism)  not all of them fans of math, what she described as a “general math reluctance.”

Fairhill MiYF

I was thrilled to get her wonderful email updates on the first and second week of programming which showed just how much of an impact a #movingmath approach can have for all learners. I especially love the progression Lisa created to gently lead reluctant movers (and math-ers) into what has become enthusiastic engagement! Here’s some of what Lisa shared with me:

Monday:  I did a couple of ice breaker activities which involved moving around and were non-threatening (meaning no one HAD to talk in front of the  group).  I started by challenging them to put THEMSELVES into patterns during this warm up time – it was totally spontaneous but it was fun for them. We also got oriented to our class space.  I had removed all the desks and chairs and had the [Math in Your Feet] squares taped on the floor.  They had to adjust to the idea that we weren’t going to sit in desks. I also introduced Drumfit on this day and used that activity time to introduce “follow me” patterns with the drumming rhythms. These kids are fairly reluctant to move around and have pretty low physical literacy and body confidence so I wanted to be sure to take the introduction of the program slowly.  They did extremely well with the movement during the icebreakers!  The drumming is growing on them but took several days for them to feel confident and, some still do not, but I’m not pushing them in that area as it’s a “fun” time. It’s such a good fit with patterns and using your body to make them though! 

Tuesday: We did the pattern game sitting in a circle that you outline in one of your lessons [Clap Hands: A Body-Rhythm Pattern Game].  This was HARD for some of them!  They were all engaged in it though.  We could certainly do this again!  Then we went to our gym space and used the ladders to prove the center [Proving Center lesson] in teams and also to create patterns as a team using bodies and any other items they wanted to use. They were told to be as creative as they wanted with their repeatable pattern. We discussed symmetry here too.  I used my purple circle discs to have them create a game using their ladders also. The game had to have some “math” in it. It was so very, very interesting to watch them do all of this!! We discussed a lot after that and talked about what they had done and how they had thought of their games and patterns.

fairhill-ladder.jpg

After one more day of getting kids used to moving and thinking about math at the same Just turns postertime Lisa introduced the first step in the  Math in Your Feet “pattern/partner/dance process.”  Lisa wrote:

It was slow and I didn’t hurry them.  It took a while to orient them to the squares, talk about sameness (congruence), and review the movement variables. We also took a LONG time talking about the turns. That’s all we got done but I told them we’d be making a pattern with our partner the next day and we’d be concerned with precision and sameness.

On Friday they started working with their partners on creating their 4-beat patterns.

The kids were ALL so engaged in this activity!  I couldn’t believe it.  They had some trouble with cooperation and with identifying sameness. It was extremely hard for a couple of students but because they were working with a partner they were more interested in “sticking in there” where it was uncomfortable until they got it right!  AWESOME!!  I felt like it was a successful day and I can’t wait to do more. 

Next week, I want to have them write a little bit about their patterns and make a drawing etc. like you do in the book.  I also want to let them do this part again then work on combining and transforming.  When we get to the mirroring piece we will have to go pretty slowly I’m guessing. 

During the second week of summer school Lisa did the mirroring/reflection lessons and was also able to extend and connect the physical work by having them having them map their patterns and then read/decode each other’s pattern maps.

Once I added music to the activity they had a blast!  I feel we were all inspired by the Math in Your Feet program to be open to new ways to learn through movement. I was so caught up in our activities I didn’t get any pictures!

But she did eventually get some videos! Here are a couple showing the children’s awesome physical thinking around reflection. One person is keeping their rights and lefts the same as they originally designed the pattern, and the other person is dancing the pattern with opposite lefts and rights. And this is all on top of some tricky rotations. A mighty feat!

Lisa says: I hope [this account] helps others dive into the program because my kids really engaged with it and I am 100% sure that they would not have been so engaged had I chosen a more traditional program for the summer enrichment. I really hope this will help them with their understanding of math and also with their movement confidence and honestly, their joy of moving! I’ll be the P.E. teacher here next year – although I must say this might actually make me a fan of math too. Yay!

Thank you, Lisa, for sharing your work with us!

Malke Rosenfeld is a dance teaching artist, author, editor, math explorer, and presenter whose interests focus on the learning that happens at the intersection of math and the moving body. She delights in creating rich environments in which children and adults can explore, make, play, and talk math based on their own questions and inclinations.