Finally, I’m a teacher. And I get to do it again tomorrow.
So, day one. It will be near impossible to fully articulate the incredible emotions and experiences that encompassed today. Maybe someday, I can do it. But, for tonight, I just want to share some things that stood out to me today. Both from my experience…and my students’ experiences.
First and foremost, it feels so good to say, “I’m a teacher.” Straight up. I teach. For the majority of my day, I teach six- and seven-year-old mathematicians. And that rules. But, it gets better. While my little ones are in enrichment, I get to be head down to teach mathematics to seventh-grade students. Yes, this is real. So my classroom experiences this year will vary greatly.
My day started on stair duty. My grade one and two students have to walk up two flights of stairs to get to the classroom. I get the glorious (no sarcasm) job of greeting them at the top of the stairs. It’s amazing. Smiles, hugs, and high fives are plenty.
After that, we do morning meetings—a time for us all to grow as a community and learn from one another.
From there, I get to head down to the seventh graders. We started our day with introductions. We told the group our favorite numbers and why they were our favorite – which turned out to be a great icebreaker. I learned lots.
So, I’m a believer in teaching the best lesson you’ve got on day one. I know it’s sorta cheesy. But, I don’t believe in starting with a syllabus or procedures or telling kids the kind of things we are going to do. I believe in just doing them. So, we started with this three-act task from Dan Meyer: World Record Balloon Dog.
They blew my mind. They inspired me with their noticings and wonderings and impressed me with their estimations.
They wondered:
Why are the balloons red? Why is her collar red?
How do you train said dog for this type of thing? Did the dog show a particular interest in popping balloons? Or did the trainer teach the dog to pop balloons?
How long will it take to pop all 100? Will the rate stay the same?
If the rate slows, what factors will impact the rate? Stamina? Spacing of balloons? Why are the balloons organized like they are? It seems like an array, but why not a 10x10?
We investigated how long it will take. And I had them predict. They had big ideas. They all agreed that the dog would slow down, but weren’t sure by how much. Their predictions ranged from 23 seconds to 35 seconds (Spoiler alert – they are gonna be surprised!). We left our time together by talking about how they are going to sketch some graphs tomorrow for what this would look like if we were to relate the number of balloons and the number of seconds. We’ll talk about what each graph means, and I’ll share some pics on Twitter tomorrow. If all goes well, we’ll watch the big reveal at the end of our time together tomorrow.
So, from there I moved back to my first and second graders where we built our essential classroom agreements together. They had beautiful ideas on the things we should do to build a happy classroom. They continued to come back to kindness. This was a resounding idea. There were more existential ideas like “peace” and “explore nature.” Those made me smile. From there, we prepared for recess and lunch.
After that, I got to work with the first graders and second graders. I know later on this week I want to do some work with them that will include working with color tiles. So for today, I set up some tasks for them to explore the color tiles through play. I asked the students to get four color tiles and build anything they wanted. The only rule was they had to use four-color tiles. From there, each student shared out about their design.
Now, I wanted to push on the squares. We began by exploring the two by two square. We talked about the attributes of a square and what needed to be true to make other squares. I then challenged them to build other squares with more or fewer tiles. As they discovered other squares, we recorded the number of tiles needed to build each of those squares. They found the following totals: 4, 9, 16, and 36. Then, something really amazing happened. In a serendipitous teacher decision, I asked students to make predictions for other numbers that might make a square. One student jumped up and said, “64.” I about lost my mind. How in the world did this young mathematician know that 64 was a square number? She wasn’t able to articulate how she knew that 64 was going to work. And then it happened. I looked over and saw another student making an 8x8 square. It really was too good to be true. I asked if everyone would be comfortable counting the number of tiles in her square. So, we counted together. And I wish I could have captured the student’s reaction when she saw that 64 was the number of tiles needed to build that square. And, then this other thing happened. We got called on the walkie-talkie to start dismissal. No more conversation. We had to go. Ahhhhhhhhhh.
But, here’s the deal. I get to go back tomorrow. I get to continue exploring that idea with them. I get to learn more about how this young student was thinking about squares and why 64 would work. And, I can’t wait.
What I was reminded of today is that this gig is exhausting. Emotionally, physically, mathematically, and personally. But, I get to do it again tomorrow. I get to learn from these amazing human beings again. I get to explore big mathematical ideas with them. I get to laugh, play, share, and learn with them. I get to continue to build a relationship with them that both encompasses and surpasses mathematics. I get to teach.