Today’s focus for #ocsbSTEAM week is Math. Put your math skills to the test in today’s STEAM challenge and learn how you can support your child’s learning in the field of math on this final day of STEAM week.
#ocsbSTEAM challenge of the day
How much do you know about marble runs? What kind of marble run will you make? Will it be slow? Fast? Long? High? Creative? Design, build, test and iterate the “best” marble run! Share photos and videos online #ocsbSTEAM and #ocsbMath.
Ideas to support your child’s exploration of math
- Check out the Ministry of Education’s document Make math part of your day.
- The Ministry Learn at Home site provides math support and activities for students of all ages.
- Visit TVO Mathify for one-to-one math tutoring for children in grades 6 to 10.
If your child is in Kindergarten to grade 6
- Bake or cook together. There is so much math in the kitchen, from measuring to learning about temperature to counting. Check out this resource on Early Years Kitchen math!
- Have family game nights! Card games, board games, checkers, and chess all teach critical thinking and math concepts while having fun.
- Puzzles are a great way to learn spatial awareness. Try picture puzzles, number puzzles (Sudoku) and word puzzles.
- Learn about The importance of shape and space in the early years
If your child is in grades 7 to 12
- Check out the University of Waterloo’s At Home site for great activities you can do at home.
- Play games! Any games– card games, dice games, board games!
- Pay attention to the language you use when talking about math. Replace sympathetic messages like “Don’t worry; math isn’t your thing” with positive statements like “You can do this, I believe in you, math is an open, beautiful subject that is all about effort and hard work.” Read more in Parents’ beliefs about math changes student achievement.
- Check out youcubed.org for great Parent Resources.
How we support your child’s learning at the OCSB
- We had a very successful OCSB Computer Science Week in December, with a lot of our students doing coding activities. You can check out the coding action on Twitter with the hashtag #ocsbCodes, #ocsbCSEd.
- OCSB provides all students access to various digital tools that complement math learning on their Student Portal like Zorbits (K-3), Mathletics (4-6), Scratch (4-8), Makecode micro:bit (3+), Desmos and more. Many schools also have robotic tools such as Ozobots, BeeBots, Spheros, Dash and Dot, micro: bits and k8s for students to apply many skills.
- OCSB teachers use a variety of High-Impact Instructional Practices in Mathematics. Check them out!