Mrs. Boyer’s 7th Grade Weblog

From elementary school, my favorite memory of math is playing Around the World.  We would do this to test our facts.  I didn’t really like the competition so much with the other students but with myself.  I would keep track of how long my winning streak was and try to beat it the next time it was my turn.  My least favorite memory was the start of having a math textbook in third grade.  We would have to do homework from the book.  At the time, I was very serious in gymnastics and trained 20 plus hours a week.  Often I would have to do my homework in the car on the way home.  I’d have to wear a flip up light around my neck and balance my book, paper, and pencil.  One time I forgot to put my name on my paper, and my teacher made me stay in for recess and write my name 50 times.

The first thing I remember learning in math class was to count.  In Kindergarten we learned to count by ones (of course), but then by 2’s, 5’s, and 10’s.  Then we learned to do all of them backwards.  We were supposed to practice them at home, and I remember reciting them to anyone who would listen for as many times as they would listen!  I think my older brother and sister hated me!  In school, we would practice by going around the room with each person saying the next number.  There was one little boy, who I’m still friends with today that would never pay attention and know where we were when we got to his turn.  I sat beside him, so I would always help him by repeating the number before his.

My favorite math teacher was my freshman year when I took Algebra II/Trigonometry.  I don’t know that there was anything special about the way she taught, but she fit my personality perfectly.  She was very structured and precise.  Her directions and assignments were always clear.  Everything always seemed to make sense the way she explained it, because I think she always connected the concepts to other concepts or to real-life events.  We would do projects every month and present them.  A lot of times doing “projects” seemed like a waste of time to me, but I always learned something doing her projects.

I think math has always been my favorite subject.  I always loved to read too, but I hated all the questions you had to answer about books and all the technical grammar stuff.  Why couldn’t we just enjoy reading a book?  All that other stuff ruined it!  I hated not being sure of my answer or having to be creative and make up stories.  I especially hated drawing pictures to go with the stories.  Math was always so concrete to me.  I liked knowing I had the right answer and having the work to back to it up.  I liked being able to tell for sure why the answer was the answer.  When you answer questions about literature, there is always more than one way of looking at things and your teacher might not agree with you!