Hands-On Learning Ideas

I teach 5th grade math and science at Harts PK-8 School in Harts, West Virginia. I LOVE both subjects and strive to instill this same passion in my students for these subjects.

But this job is not always easy (as any teacher will tell you!). Especially in Harts, which is a very rural West Virginia town. Many of my students do not have the ability to travel out of their community because of a lack of resources. This means they don’t always have a wide variety of cultural experiences they can relate to classroom math.

I often share this anonymous quote with my students: Life is like a math equation. In order to gain the most, you have to know how to convert the negatives into positives.

My students are always eager to learn. They absolutely love hands-on, engaging activities that use their senses. These experiences help them explore math concepts concretly and deepen their knowledge, so they can apply it to their everyday life.

For example, we use manipulatives like fraction bars to compare fractions, along with dice and dominos to create fractions and perform operations. We also use place value charts and disks to place numbers in specific place value positions when adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing.

Even really good math curricula often teaches math concepts with fictional scenarios that students find unrelatable or boring. This can create anxiety or apathy about the subject. Students need to view mathematics as more than problems on a piece of paper and instead as an integral part of their lives.

My students love reading DynaMath because they are interested in stories. This interest makes them more comfortable sharing their opinions, discussing math concepts, and completing the problems with other students. I also print out additional skills sheets for them to reinforce the math they learn in the article.

I received DynaMath magazine through a Donors Choose project because I felt I needed a real-world math resource beyond what I could get from my school’s allotted funds. I met my funding goal in less than three months through the kindness of various donors. Hooray!

But the real success is being able to give students math lessons that can set them up for achievement.