Resource Blog #1: Math Geek Mama

The resource I found is this blog written by Math Geek Mama. Her real name is Bethany and as a former teacher she specializes in math education, specifically approaches and engaging students. She posts videos and forums about encouraging students to want to learn about math and articles about incorporating technology and literacy into the math curriculum. The main article I found gave tips about increasing literacy in the math classroom. One of the tips I liked was the math vocabulary and the word wall because I’ve seen similar ideas in social studies or science classrooms where vocabulary is crucial, but I never thought about vocabulary helping students with math. She also talked about using schemas which we talked about in our textbook, while hitting on predictions, connections, and visualizations all in relation to math. When she goes through these tips, she also links other resources that she thinks can be helpful or beneficial for teachers. She has lesson plans on her page for grades K-12. There were also tips for teaching math like helping students with dyscalculia, common core help, and just basic resources for students and teachers. I like this website a lot because I feel like the author was once a struggling teacher and now wants to help out other new, struggling teachers. She posts her lesson plans and worksheets for free.

Link: Using Literacy Strategies to Teach Math

Word Count: 225

Synthesis Blog #1: Ch 2 Subjects Matter

Throughout chapter 2 of Subjects Matter, I started to think about how I read when I was younger versus how I read now. I feel like when I was younger I would do as the text said "drive through some text" by reading it and not really questioning it or analyzing the text but taking it at face value. I think that as I've gotten older, I've tried to analyze things I read more, especially for school because things like author's point of view, or inferences are more important in college textbooks than first grade picture books. I also liked the point where the text states that "smart readers don't just go through these activities in 1-2-3 order, but hop back and forth between stages" because I think that's how some people's mind works when readings it isn't just read-think about it-continue. You can read a passage, ask yourself some questions, go back a few pages and find something that might help and then analyze what it all means in context, keep reading, reread and then continue the process usually.

One thing I liked from the text was how they tried to show us how younger students feel by having us as readers go through the steps like reading a passage where we have subtle knowledge versus reading a passage where we have little to no knowledge. It showed us how difficult and frustrating that can be even as college students. But it also gave us the tools, such as schema and prereading activities, to be able to handle these situations and help our students.

Word count: 265

"The Shapes of Me and You and Other Things"

I read "The shapes of me and you and other things" by Dr. Seuss. I love reading books by Dr. Seuss because they are short and sweet and full of fun rhymes. The pages were full of super vibrant colors like pink and blue. The characters were also adorable. All these components help catch young kids attention which can be helpful when learning to read and making them actually want to read.






Word Count: 72