Sarah Kaczmarek

SMA 100 01
Klosky
15 November 2015
Ten Black Dots and September 11: Integrating Social Studies and Mathematics
Through Childrens Literature, by Leah Kinniburgh and Kelly Byrd, The Social
Studies, January/February 2008, pp. 33-48.
http://www.ernweb.com/educational-research-articles/integrating-math-andsocial-studies-ten-black-dots-and-september-11/

Learning math in both primary school and secondary school was always
difficult for me. Mostly because math did not interest me. Although I never
would have thought that integrating other subjects into math would make it
interesting for primary and secondary students. I never really connected with
math because I felt like the work we were doing in class was never going to be
used in real life.

This article showed me that math can be used in every day situations
and combined with other subjects to create amazing lesson plans. I believe that
combining different subjects like reading and history with math can really

improve the interest level in math classrooms because it relates to other

subjects and real life events.

The article explains that there is a book called Ten Black Dots that can
be used to combine reading and math into one lesson. The book shows that
there are circles everywhere in life and encourages the students to find all the
circles in a class room such as the clock or a table. I think that this is a great
integration of subjects.
The teacher in the article then added in another subject, history, into the
mix. She read the students a book about the attacks on 9/11 and then
discussed with students in the classroom what they remembered about that
day in history. Then, using the Ten Black Dots book, the teacher asked the
students in the classroom to create a picture using as many as ten black dots
and as little as one black dot depicting a piece of history from that day. One
student made a window of one of the World Trade Center buildings and another
made the nose of one of the airplanes that exploded.
This project, in my opinion, seemed to be very successful. The students
seemed engaged in learning and reading and counting. The students learned
about the history and story of 9/11. The students also, read a book and
discussed the attacks on 9/11. Lastly, the students counted the dots to make

their pictures and also saw geometry in every day objects in their classroom
and in historic events. This type of learning by combining subjects gets
students active and using all parts of their brain. They also are thinking in
different ways and picturing things in their heads.