This week I have been team teaching with Britt Gow in my role as literacy coach at Hawkesdale P12 College.. Britt is collaborating on a maths project called The Potato Olympics, with Deon Scanlon, currently a year 6 teacher at St. Aloysius School in Tasmania.
What began as a challenge for me at the beginning of the year in my role as a literacy coach, to “find” the literacy in maths, is now a source of great excitement for me. I have learnt more about literacy through working with this exciting, committed and highly motivated teacher, than I ever envisaged learning at the beginning of the year. For years I have heard and read that all content area teachers, are teachers of literacy, but honestly, I struggled to stretch much past the “glossary” as being “it”. I am not a mathematical person. I didn’t enjoy my years spent in the maths classroom and at the beginning of the year, I did wonder what value I might be as a literacy coach, “coaching” a maths teacher.
Imagine my delight at discovering that maths is actually enjoyable, and that literacy abounds!
As part of the Potato Olympics project, we got the students to write about their potato athlete. The students had to give their potato a name, measure and record all the relevant mathematical statistics, and then write about the potato’s family, siblings, life so far, explanations for any dints or spots and their dreams and hopes for the Potato Olympics, which are being held tomorrow. The students have had a great week and we are all excitedly looking forward to the Games.