My students are inquisitive, creative, and quick to rise to a challenge. They crave conversation and higher-order thinking and are passionate about learning.
Our school is not the norm for our suburb as we are a Title I school and our students are working so hard to advance their skills.
Nothing excites them more than being able to answer the question why? They want to not only know the answer to something but why that answer makes sense.
These children will lead the future of our society and I want to ensure they have the confidence and skills to do so.
My Project
I'm filling in the holes from my last DonorChoose.org project. I still have a need for some more manipulatives to make sure that students can reinforce the concepts being taught. Abstract thinking comes after concrete so I want to make sure I have tangible concrete manipulatives to use for each unit of study. With 3 grade levels, that makes for a lot of different manipulatives needed. These concrete examples help students check their reasoning and feel engaged with their learning. They are ready to tackle more complex questions once they are confident they know the answers to the base level questions. Math has many areas -- patterns, measurement, geometry, statistics, probability, and more -- and they're often unfamiliar, abstract, and confusing to students. I will use the math manipulatives to help children develop the ability and confidence to find their way around in each of these areas, see how they connect and know what to do should they forget a fact or procedure. I am buying a variety of manipulatives that will be used in several of my various grade level units. I am trying to subscribe to the CRA (Concrete-Representational-Abstract) model for teaching math. The purpose of teaching through a concrete-to-representational-to-abstract sequence of instruction is to ensure students truly have a thorough understanding of the math concepts/skills they are learning. When students are allowed to first develop a concrete understanding of the math concept/skill, then they are much more likely to perform that math skill and truly understand math concepts at the abstract level.
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As a teacher-founded nonprofit, we're trusted by thousands of teachers and supporters across the country. This classroom request for funding was created by Ms. McGroarty and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.
