Concordia’s Grade One Teachers Build Foundations While Making Math Fun

Foundations for success

Concordia is well known for our strong math program. Concordia Reception students are well prepared when entering grade one with a strong math foundation, and our teachers personalize each student’s math learning to boost their skills.

“One reason why a student should come here for early elementary instead of waiting until grade five is that they're going to get the academic foundations in grade one they need to succeed at the next level,” said grade one teacher Mrs. Wood.

“The aim of grade one math is to cement foundational math skills. We keep reinforcing foundational math skills, and students become proficient math learners much faster,” said Mrs. Wood.

“I can see our former grade one students who have progressed throughout the school, and how they can apply those foundational skills to a lot more complex problems, and how important these foundational skills are. When these skills are cemented in grade one, children become much more successful in later grades,” Mrs. Wood added.

two elementary school girls with teacher

Customized Learning

“We always see the potential in each student, and we make accommodations as to what each student needs, rather than just teaching math as a general class lesson,” said grade one teacher Mr. Turner-Williams.

“We customize the lesson for each student. If this child can learn better with manipulatives, then we use that method for this child. If this group of children can learn better by listening and reading the words of the problem, then that's how we're going to do it. And if we see a student needs extra challenges, we can provide that too,” said Mr. Turner-Williams.

“From the first day, the children are using hands-on manipulatives to solve difficult higher order thinking. Concordia is very well resourced in the classroom for the kids to use a multisensory approach, like manipulatives and visual aids, for learning math,” said Mr. Turner-Williams. “As a result, by week five of grade one, students can use those skills and apply them to difficult problems.

“I think the best example is solving word problems. For a problem like ‘Jane has 6 pennies and finds 4 pennies - how many does she have?’ The student can use her knowledge of numbers to solve the problem without needing to know what a penny is,” Mr. Turner-Williams added.

A Fun Part of a Whole

“Math at Concordia is not just done by numbers - it's part of a system. Reading and writing are used together with math, so that the child doesn’t just know how to solve number problems, but is also able to understand and apply those skills through their reading and writing and overall learning,” said Mrs. Wood.

“Even though math is a core subject we make math fun. Students will actually say ‘Hey it was a fun math lesson, I enjoyed math time, I learned about addition because I played this kind of game, and I understand it better because we played this game,’” said Mrs. Wood.

“This is something we are proud of as a school, and makes us stand out. Not just in grade one, but throughout the school, teachers like to make numbers and skills concepts fun for each child, and make math fun for everyone,” said Mrs. Wood.

“We also try to build academic independence, and make sure students know our expectations and their responsibilities,” added Mr. Turner-Williams. “Having the responsibility of homework and looking after their math book makes the students feel grown up. Showing mom and dad what she’s learning in math makes a student excited to show her homework in her notebook, and that keeps students engaged.”

Concordia grade one students shared how they like learning math.

“We used the 10 blocks and we practiced counting by 10s and 20s, and the one blocks to count by ones. The 10 blocks are stuck to each other, and the one blocks are squares,” said Maddie.

“We tried to guess how many blocks we would need to measure Mr. Williams,” said Ariel.

“We played a math game called Prodigy. I liked it - it teaches us about time and pictures and math skills,” said Maddie.

“In Prodigy, there’s some math and it’s fun to play,” said Yeva.

“Prodigy is a game where you have to solve math problems to defeat monsters,” explained David. “Or do pet rescue,” added Gabrielle.

“We use Prodigy and IXL on our computers. I think they’re fun,” said Dania.

“Sometimes we write numbers and problems on the board, and that helps me learn,” said Gabrielle.

“Sometimes we use our math journals, we do drawings and we have to solve questions and word problems,” said David.

“We solve math problems in our math journals, like 2+3=5,” said Chan. “Or 3+4=7,” added David.

“We have a math book, it teaches us about how to use pluses, minuses and equals signs,” said Ariel.

“We learn about plusses and addition and subtraction. Sometimes we do pluses and additions for homework, or sometimes we need to write math problems in our workbooks,” said Celia.

“We played a game in the book to fill in a square by answering lots of questions, some true or false questions, or we had a row of clips in number order and we had to fill in the missing number of clips,” said Celia.