BMUFSD: Students Make Creative Artwork To Help Them Count

Press release from the Briarcliff Manor Union Free School District:

2021-11-03

How do you incorporate creativity into a math lesson? Leave it to Todd second grade teacher Michelle Kiger. Recently, she asked her students to make creative designs using paper cutouts of math blocks.

“We are finishing up our Place Value unit this week and are making posters with creatures that the students designed using math blocks,” Ms. Kiger said. “They can use as many math blocks as they want and on the bottom they write down how many they used, putting them in extended form and then standard form.”

Students cut paper pieces of math blocks in shapes of squares for 100, thin strips for 10 and single blocks for ones. Next, they glued the pieces to create their shape: Pokémon, dog, ghost, smiley face, doll, elephant and a Minecraft person.

“They can choose anything they want and they can decide how many blocks they want to use to create their design,” Ms. Kiger said.

Students came up with creative ways to make the designs, using only the pieces of paper allowed, although they can choose the quantity and color.

“I’m making a lion. I’ll use yellow and some orange paper for the mane,” said Eli. “First, I am making a plan but I might change the shape.”

Once their designed was ready and the pieces were glued, students were able to easily detect which place value units they used to create their creatures.

“After you make them, you count the blocks and then you write what you did: how many hundreds, tens and ones,” Juliana explained.

This press release was produced by the Briarcliff Manor Union Free School District. The views expressed here are the author’s own.