Fostering an Environment of Numeracy Across All Settings

A school goal of ours is to foster an environment of numeracy. Our action plan includes references to school data and ties to our curriculum and standards, but math instruction needs to be thought of as an element of instruction that should be embedded across the school day and across environments. This thought process has required some outside of the box thinking so that students are exposed to numbers and math concepts throughout their days.

This has led to the math facts written in the bathroom stalls, angles drawn outside the gym door, vocabulary displayed along lines in the hallways, and access to math resources outside the classroom.

There is a consistent focus in education on embedding literacy across the school day in all content areas. At DGS, you will see a well-established culture of reading through book shelves in the hallways, healthy classroom and school libraries, and the focus on reading activities across the grade levels. We know that creating a literature rich environment supports students as developing readers, and the fundamental principles of establishing a literature rich environment apply to mathematical instruction as well.

As indicated in Lainey Simmon’s book Guided Math, ‘As students see numbers and math-related materials  throughout the classroom and participate in real-world, meaningful problem-solving opportunities, they begin to see the connection math has to their own lives.” The author continues to explain that a numeracy rich environment promotes mathematical thinking and that math is a constructive process. That being said, embedding elements of math in the bathroom, in the hallways, or in other unique locations set the stage for fostering an environment that supports students acquisition of number sense and math concepts. Math is not to be seen in isolation, but across environments and elements of the child’s life. We look forward to embedding more examples through DGS to support classroom math instruction for our Royals!

 “Math Fact Graffiti” in the bathrooms!