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"Why do we need math"  "Why do I have to do my math homework?"  How many times have you, as a parent, been asked this by your child?  

Math is the building block for everything in our daily lives. Math is numbers all around us. Numbers are used in telling time, calling a phone number, reading an address, changing the channel on the remote, etc. Students will become adults in the future, who will use math in their jobs.  All kinds of careers use math; for example, musicians, accountants, architects, fashion designers, firemen, policemen, and teachers. 

In the first class, students will brainstorm what they think math is and why it is important. They will listen to one of my favorite stories;  "A Day With No Math" by Marilyn Kaye. This story is about a boy who doesn't want to do his math homework and wishes there was no such thing as math.  He wakes up to a day without numbers and of frustrating and funny surprises.  After hearing the story, students will  have a better understanding of why math is so important in their everyday life. They will write a simple paragraph of how they use numbers everyday.
   
During the second class, students will listen and read the poem “Math About Me” which gives them many more examples of how math is used in their lives.
They will create an “All About Me" craft using addition, subtraction, multiplication, or division equations. The craft will be differentiated depending on their age.