I'm really starting to love maths now

It's a great day! One of my students turned to me this morning and said, "I'm really starting to love maths now." I really think it's because we're doing so much small group work and I've been able to really sit down with her group and help them use manipulates, draw diagrams and complete activities to really consolidate their understanding of equivalent fractions.

I had already planned to give out a maths attitude survey in the afternoon and that was very intersting! All students but one circled only positive words to describe how they feel abouts maths including positive, interested, confident, successful, etc. One girl wrote "maths magician" which I loved! She really impressed me this week as she was able to extrapolate rules to unfamiliar problems and I've never noticed her do that before. Even my students who find maths hard wrote positive comments including one girl who has not had a very positive attitude about it before.

I tell the kids at the beginning of the year that they will all love maths by the end of the year and it looks like that is coming true! I think particularly its because I love teaching maths and I think they genuinely pick up on that excitement but also because this workshop method is appealing to most of them.

One or two students wrote they would like to be shown examples first and have their first attempts checked. Amongst other things I have been using programs like StudyLadder where they can watch a video then try a follow-up activity or sometimes shown them general concepts (such as finding equivalent fractions for common denominators) then seen if they can apply it in a new way (adding fractions with common denominators - they have all mastered adding fractions with the same denominator) . I check the results and use the data to inform new lessons. The groups are flexible anyway but I've identified 3-4 kids who are capable mathematicians but would probably feel confident working in closer proximity to me so I can give a mini-check in at the beginning of the activity. (My focus group could do a quick warm-up). I will also plan for these 3-4 kids to have more teacher time.