Lindee Phillips

12/6/19

Math in the Classroom

In-Service Outline
1. Goal for this in-service
a. Help teachers learn how to present math concepts in meaningful ways to children
b. Demonstrate to teachers that math concepts can be taught in any activity in the
classroom
c. Help teachers to be more comfortable making math an integrated part of the
classroom.
2. Teaching Outline
a. To begin I will share a video demonstrating a time when a math concept was
being taught in a way that was meaningful understandable to the learner. I will
point out what the teacher did in the video to make the concept meaningful to the
learner. I will emphasize that in order to make math meaningful, we need to know
our children and what things are meaningful to them. I will then open it up to
discussion:
i. Why is it important it is to present math concepts to children in ways that
interest them?
ii. With our individual group of children, how can we make math
meaningful?
b. Activity: to teach the second and third ideas, I will present materials that are
generally specific to classroom subjects (paint brushes and crayons for art, kitchen
and house supplies for dramatic play, etc.) and have the teachers brainstorm ways
that they can incorporate math concepts into each type of activity. After allowing
time for them to brainstorm, we will discuss what they come up with. Then I will
emphasize these main ideas:
i. Math concepts can be taught and incorporated into almost everything we
do with children.
ii. Teachers should incorporate math concepts into casual conversations as a
way to make math meaningful to children.
iii. Teaching foundational math concepts young, gives children the
opportunity to be successful.
3. Evaluation
a. Next time, I would more thoroughly plan my first discussion. I feel like there was
good discussion, but it could have had a more purposeful direction to it and it felt
kind of awkward.
b. The activity that we did with various materials worked really well. It really helped
the teachers to think outside the box and learn how to incorporate math. We had a
really good discussion about it.
c. If I were to add or take away anything, I would take out some of the awkward
discussion and replace it with more discussion about the activity. That is a
discussion that would have been really meaningful.