Through open-ended provocations students are invited to investigate and uncover mathematical concepts. Provocations often begin with an inquiry question, merging students’ interests and curriculum content. In this example, near the end of the school year, students are bringing together two familiar ideas – patterns and shapes.
We were looking for a cross-curricular way to address probability content in Grade 4 Mathematics and content from Applied Design 4, which is new to the curriculum. We came up with the idea of making a game of chance, because we felt that the process of creating a game would reinforce new concepts in math and applied design by giving students an opportunity to apply these concepts in practice.
The quantity of 5 is an essential benchmark number for young students, and a strong understanding of 5 will contribute to their understanding of 10, another significant benchmark number in our number system. As the complexity of number increases, the importance of understanding the decomposition of 10 in higher-level operations becomes evident.
We use patterns to represent identified regularities and to make generalizations. This lesson extends patterning concepts taught in Kindergarten and Grade 1, where students learned to identify and extend patterns with multiple attributes. It is essential for students to describe, extend, and make generalizations about patterns that seem to be the same or different. This kind of categorizing and generalizing is an important developmental step on the journey toward algebraic thinking.
Teachers and students at Richmond elementary schools, including Lord Byng and Tomekichi Homma, have been examining how mathematics can be experienced in the community, and connecting with stories of place. Inspired by the book Tluuwaay Waadluxan Mathematical Adventures, created by Elders, educators, community members, and students in Haida Gwaii, the Richmond teachers and students have looked for mathematics in their community and posed and solved problems of interest to them.
This learning activity shows an example of cross-curricular teaching in which students have an opportunity to be innovators and constructors of their own learning. In focusing on designing and marketing a product, this learning activity mirrors the interdisciplinary nature of the world: to be successful in business it is important to have creative ideas, good communication skills, and a solid understanding of financial matters. Therefore, it felt natural and realistic to combine Math, Applied Design, and Language Arts in this activity.