Inquiry

Today in math I learned that it can take a lot of warm up to get back into the groove of things... this does not just for running, but for math thought processes and inquiry.
Of course I always "knew" this, but today I truly felt this. It was the first day back from winter break and my first time trying to complex and layered solve quadratic problems and sequences in ... longer than I can remember.

I am still looking forward to finding out other ways that people think and how some people are so much quicker at recognizing math problems than others. Practice? Maybe.
Using the complex problems like we did today with the Gardens and Snakes, we covered a lot of standards...all seemingly in "one" problem. This was exciting. The many steps of the problem were rewarding at the end. What other ways can we use overlapping problems like this in our younger classrooms? How much stamina will the students have to do this and how far do I push them? Indeed that will be different for each class, but these thoughts are floating around in my mind.

I think it's exciting to use such an overlapping problem or scenario to get all standards connected and used. It makes me and the students see that the requirements we have to learn in math are not random and separate but useful and connected to each other.

It was fun to reflect on my own thinking processes through these math snakes and gardens!