I’ve mentioned Math Munch before and tweeted its scrumptious bits here and there. I wanted teachers to see the site and share it with their students. But truth be told, we teachers often get side-tracked — gung-ho about something in September only to see it vanish by the first snowfall.
Then I watched this TEDx video — thanks to Shecky Riemann over at Math-Frolic! for featuring it — and it dawned on me: why not put this thoughtful and engaging resource directly into my students’ hands?
Before I shared the video, I told my students what I knew about Math Munch:
That three passionate teachers — Paul Salomon, Anna Weltman, and Justin Lanier — created it to help students learn and love math beyond the classroom walls.
That Justin is a good dancer, and what a privilege it was to meet and talk with him this past summer.
That Paul created a lovely art piece that hangs in my home.
That last year I tried some MM activities with my students — like the Weight Puzzles and The Numbers Project.
That I don’t know Anna personally, but based on her work and her words in the video, I find her inspiring and creative.
We watched the first 8 minutes of the video, then discussed why they opened with Marjorie Rice — her discovery, her joy, her story. We talked about how math is perceived by the public, how damaging it is to confine math to the classroom and to textbooks, and how wrong it is to believe that math is only for "the best and the brightest."
Then this slide came up:
DO. MAKE. WATCH. READ. PLAY.
These five words sparked an idea: a way to integrate Math Munch into my curriculum meaningfully and sustainably.
So I created this MM_Activities handout (PDF link in original blog), organized by those five categories.
My plan:
Each student gets this handout — just one per quarter. No other handouts. All work is submitted on their own paper.
Instead of assigning it every other week, it's now a quarterly project.
They’ll complete 15 tasks — 3 in each category. That’s essentially 5 posts over 10 weeks. Totally reasonable.
I was going to assign the most recent post, like “Sept. 03, 2013,” but that would waste all the archived goodness.
So: student choice. (Also, I get to read way more Math Munch reflections this way. Win.)
Teaching is a waste if we’re not learning from it too, right?
I’m crazy excited about this. My kids are going to rock this project — because they’re awesome.