Matariki Maths: Connecting Culture and Curriculum

Matariki is coming! This special time of year is not only about cultural celebrations but also offers an incredible opportunity to weave Maths into teaching and learning. From exploring symmetrical patterns in Māori art to analysing data related to Matariki traditions, we can engage our students in a fun and meaningful learning experience. So, let's embrace the spirit of Matariki and embark on an exciting journey of integrated maths learning!

Here is a LINK to some great Matariki lessons on nzmaths. These lessons cover Levels 1-4 of the current NZC and provide numerous ideas for cross-strand and integrated units. Last year, the teachers' feedback on implementing these resources was very positive, so I've decided to share more for this year's learning

I highly recommend exploring these resources, as they contain excellent lessons and ideas for teaching and learning various maths concepts and skills in a relevant and practical context.

As a teaser, feel free to explore the three ready-to-use lesson slide decks below (click on the image to access). For more ideas and variety, please follow the nzmaths link.

Manaiakalani Mathematics Practice Intensive (MPI)

The inaugural MPI Cohort 1 kicked off at the beginning of this term. We had two productive and intensive days full of learning, reflections and 'aha' moments.
Sign up for the MPI 2025,  as spots are filling up quickly. 

We have a diverse range of participants in the program, each finding their own areas to enhance their teaching of mathematics... Check out their blogs

"...This is exactly why I wanted to go on MPI. My strengths are in my content knowledge, as well as my own mathematics ability. However I needed to know how to strengthen my own understanding of current pedagogy, and in turn, hopefully, this will help with my planning of maths."

...how to use the PAT maths data to inform the next learning steps for the learners. This will be very useful for us as it is clear and easy to understand what the next steps are for the students. We will be able to use these and offer them in our workshops to extend and progress learning."

"One of my big take-aways is the fact that I am being delivered all of this research based material and I can pick and choose as to what will suit me and my class at this point.  Speaking of which, how fantastic do these slides look?  I am very keen to be working towards my planning for my students to be as enticing and interesting as the examples that we are having shared with us."

 

Thinking of my TAI 2024: Focusing on Mathematics!

I will continue to improve my teaching practice and support other teachers in enhancing their teaching of mathematics. While participating in the pilot MPI, my main inquiry focus will remain on developing teacher pedagogical and content knowledge to ensure the effectiveness of their maths programmes. Additionally, I aim to promote critical thinking in both students and educators to achieve the best outcomes.

Here is the Causal Chain that I developed last year and am continuing to implement this year. It helps keep me on track and has received positive feedback from my COL colleagues and leaders.

Manaiakalani TOD

Today, we had great opportunities to connect with many Manaiakalani educators and engage in numerous discussions about effective practices for teaching literacy. With the support of my team, I led a CREATE workshop where our group explored toys from both the past and present. We had a blast learning about different types of toys and then had the opportunity to unleash our creativity by making our very own toys. We had a lot of fun learning, creating and playing this afternoon! 

Please feel free to visit my presentation below, which includes a multimodal site "Toys and Games Then and Now".

Learning, Creating and Sharing - week 2

During the week following our first collaborative session, we continued to talk about our favourite books. One of my inquiry focuses is on making students' learning experiences authentic by designing LCS projects based on their interests and taking into account their identities. During this project, we put students' interests at the centre of their learning and I believe this approach inspired our young learners to create many wonderful written texts, art and digital objects.

Reflecting on our class identities, It was very interesting to observe how different classes focused on different aspects of LCS. One of the classes discussed the story elements and created their own characters and settings in response to the book they'd selected. I believe they now aim for rewriting the 'model text' and creating their own book! The students started to work on some illustrations. How exciting was to see such creative writers and artists! 

Another class focused on descriptive writing, unpacked new vocabulary and dug even deeper talking about characters' feelings in the book. The students presented their descriptions to the audience and received well-deserved Pakipaki!

My class decided to use one of the famous book characters and completely change the settings of the story! We brainstormed a lot of problems and solutions, wrote a number of short plays, acted them out and performed to the other classes last Friday. I promote the use of drama techniques to support literacy learning. I believe it makes reading and writing activities more engaging and meaningful for students,  enhances critical and creative thinking skills, thus I hope it will help my students to formulate and express ideas and opinions. 

Our Y2-3 students were highly engaged and motivated. They were proud to present what they had created and tried their best sharing authentic learning experiences. Our next step is to do some blog posts sharing our project with a wider audience and connecting our learners online.  Teachers will plan for shared writing lessons to write smart comments on the other class blogs and then allow our students to leave more smart positive personal comments.

Year 2-3 Collaborative Learn-Create-Share Book Week project

My personal goals:

Engage and collaborate with my team by involving them in the cross-curricular LCS project from the planning stage to the celebration of the school Book Day in 3 weeks

Provide our students with meaningful and exciting experiences based on their interests.

Day #1 

• Collecting student voice/ interests - Learner Identity

• Oral language 

• Vocabulary 

• Critical thinking

• Collecting and analysing data

• Love of learning 

• Creativity (Drama, Visual arts including modern visual arts which use technology: photography, video, filmmaking, etc)

• Cybersmart across the curriculum

• Learn-Create-Share!!!

What a day we had! Full of fun, reading, learning, creating and sharing our reading preferences and favourite books. We had to work together in a respectful manner and give our opinions. We, teachers, were blown away by our students' ideas and thinking! It was a long day but our young learners were absolutely enthusiastic to participate in this project. They took ownership of their learning and were proud to express their learner identities.

Our students' ideas:

The feedback from my colleagues after the beginning of this project was very rewarding. They found that their students were highly engaged and motivated during various follow-up writing and reading activities.  The outcomes were impressive quantity- and quality-wise. Even the reluctant writers asked to extend their writing time to complete their work.

We will meet and share our wonderful learning next Friday! The students are very excited to share with other students and find out what the other classes created during the week.