What does Numeracy look like?

Graduation Numeracy Assessment

Are you more numerate than a 10th grader? How would you do on British Columbia’s new Graduation Numeracy Assessment?  Click on the picture of the exam question and give the assessment a try.  To log in, just pick any school district and any 9 digit PEN. I’d love to hear your feedback in the comments. Speaking of numeracy, SFU’s Peter Liljedahl has prepared a selection of numeracy tasks, for K-12, that can help with developing students’ skills. He also had a hand in writing the Graduation Numeracy Assessment, so practicing these from K-11 would be great preparation for students.

Carole Fullerton

We had a great turn out for Carole Fullerton’s workshops on November 7th.  As you can see from the picture, some students (in this case, at Chaffey-Burke) are already hard at work practicing their visualization of 5’s and writing about what they have.  I’m hoping to organize a follow up in the spring where those of us working to implement Carole’s ideas in the classroom get together to talk about what’s working and what more we need.  Also, for those of you who missed it, Carole will be doing 2 more workshops (one primary and one intermediate) at February’s District Day.

Number Talk Essential

We place a lot of emphasis with the parents and caregivers of our early learners to talk and read to their children–but what about number talk? Recent studies have discovered that number talk is an important component of early learning.  How can we get parents involved in number talk? What is your school doing to engage parents in this crucial numeracy task?

 

Finding Balance and Joy in Numeracy

Are you stressed by new curriculum? Do you feel overwhelmed by expectations to teach curricular competencies in math? Is the task of differentiating for your diverse group of learners feeling unmanageable?  Help is available!

First, as the new Math/Science Program consultant, I would love the opportunity to come work with you and your class to develop your math program and connect you to resources.  E-mail me at Donna.Morgan@sd41.bc.ca or give me a call on my special Math/Science Consultant Hotline 604-760-6157 (ok, it IS just an old iPhone, but it makes me feel good).

Secondly, check out the BC Numeracy Network.  Don’t spend your valuable teacher time re-inventing the wheel.  Take a look at this website that is filled with great resources.  It has a balanced approach to numeracy and brings some activities that will help you (and your students) find the joy and beauty in math.

New on the Blog

Check out the SD 41 Shares above for some shared resources.  Have something to share? Send it to me and I will share with the district.

Subscription

If I have met you recently or you have attended a workshop, I may automatically sign you up for a subscription to this blog.  That means you will get a reminder newsletter once every two weeks (or less often) to your sd41 e-mail if there are updates on this website.  It is easy to unsubscribe, but after finding the great resources here, I’m sure you won’t want to.

Math Talks, Carole Fullerton and Blog Updates

Math and Number Talks are a great strategy to get students working on the communication competencies and computational fluency in Math.  They can be applied from K-12 (and beyond). California teacher Fawn Nguyen has compiled a great list of resources for this strategy.  Have you started using it? Comment by clicking the bubble above.

Carole Fullerton

Carole Fullerton’s visit to Burnaby is starting to fill up.  There are still places in the morning intermediate session and a few spots in the primary session.  Sign up now at the staff development calendar.

New on the Blog

If you check out New Curriculum Support from the tabs above, you find that the one column rubrics outlining curricular competencies have been completed for K-9.  Also, info from the Curriculum Implementation Day at Burnaby Mountain has been shared as well.