It's Math Madness Week at Noble

The following content was provided by Tia Clasen, communications director for the Robbinsdale Area Schools.

Some children have been counting down the days until a favorite holiday.  At in the Robbinsdale Area Schools, students are spending a week doing even more great things with math.

The week of December 19 – 22 is Math Madness Week at Noble, where students will engage in various activities that highlight where math naturally occurs within a community.  This week-long focus began in May of 2010, when it was known as Math Trails, and is now an annual event. 

Students walk “the trail” and answer math questions.  Public schools and colleges have developed Math Trails for various populations all over North America.  At Noble, such Math Trails have students walking hallways, visiting lunchrooms and the media center and, in good weather, visiting the playground to answer math questions on various topics, including measurement, time, geometry, estimation, numbers and operations. 

Next week, some of the activities will include counting items, locating items of a certain length, adding, finding angles, graphing, perimeter, and more.  In addition, Wednesday, December 21st will be “Wear a Number Day”.  Students and staff are encouraged to wear an article of clothing that has a number on it. 

Those staff and students who don’t have such an article of clothing will be provided a badge on which they can write a number of their choosing.  During the day, students will engage in lots of fun activities that center around their numbers – from sorting themselves into odd and even numbers, to multiplying groups’ numbers. 

“Our staff will have conversations with students about their numbers, so not only will they be wearing numbers, but we’ll be talking numbers!” explained Beth Overstad, Noble’s instructional coach who is overseeing the week’s events.  “The activities for the week are grade level appropriate, but fun.  The kids see that math is active, more than numbers on a page.”