By Lorienne Beals | Development Director
Ms. Christine Fiechuk is a Math and Science teacher at Takoma Park Education Campus in Washington, DC. She is a stellar educator, committed to engaging her students and making learning accessible and fun. That's why she extended a warm welcome to Master Teaching Artist, Arianna Ross, sharing her classroom for a 10-session artist-in-residency program. She requested Arianna work with her most challenging classrooms to help them better understand fractions and geometry.
Arianna began each lesson with a modified sun salutation from yoga as a warm-up, to get students' attention and to help them connect and concentrate. Then they dove into fractions, dancing down a number line, using hand gestures to represent mathematical operations, and comparing fractions to deepen their understanding. Ms. Fiechuk noted that kids who were normally distracted and talking out of turn became thoughtful and focused during these lessons. After 5 lessons on fractions, they then shifted their focus to geometry. Arianna led students through exercises to create their own word problems. They each created a shape world and defined their characters utilizing polygons. Ms. Ross challenged the kids with creating a cartoon to illustrate their world problem - without using ANY curved lines at all. EVERY student created an intricate world entirely made of polygons.
Ms. Fiechuck: "Simply by looking at their drawings, I could see that the students had gained an understanding of polygons and geometric forms and improved their understanding of fractions. I loved giving my students the opportunity to work with math outside the box. We danced the fractions and it made sense. They learned to collaborate well together."
Jaden: I feel like I learned how to think in 3-D and outside the box.
Nnany: I learned that you can do fun projects and still learn math at the same time. Also, the challenge of doing pictures with no curves was fun.
Julissa: I learned how you make shapes and how you can learn more about shapes if you just use your creativity.
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Thank you so much for being part of the movement that brings art into the classrooms and puts fun into learning math, science, and so much more!
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