Numeracy in Action at St Matthew’s

This week we have included photos of children at St Matthew’s engaging in the “Grapple” phase of our Numeracy Framework. During the Grapple phase, students are presented with rich, real world maths problems that engage them on multiple levels.

These Inquiry based problems are designed to move students from “not knowing” to “knowing”. During this phase, students are encouraged to construct their own meaning from challenging mathematical tasks. Teachers walk around the room and explicitly guide, teach and empower students one on one and in small groups. This is designed to help students more through the “uncomfortableness” of grappling with maths investigations.

Students collaborate with one another to formulate ideas, make hypotheses, reason, strategise and share.

Below, 2B students are “grappling” with division. They are demonstrating their understanding of mathematical equation with visual reasoning. The students were asked to solve the division number sentences by using their whiteboards and beans. They counted out the number of beans and divided them amongst the groups. Great job 2B!

In the below phots, Year 4 students are working through an angles investigation. In this particular part of the investigation, they were asked whether angles could exist on their own or if there was always another/multiple angles that existed alongside the original one. This was designed to link the understanding of a 360-degree revolution with angles. Students then investigated interior and exterior angles and were asked how they might find the exterior/reflex angle if they knew, and could measure the smaller interior angle. What a lot of learning packed in there, Year 4!

Finally, we have Mrs Thomas’ students engaging in an investigation about data. The children were given a box of smarties and asked how they would display and interpret the data. What a huge achievement for Year 1s!

Rachel Powell

Curriculum Coordinator

Rachel.powell@cg.catholic.edu.au