Is the order of the activities important?
We have been away for a week and so have not been keeping up with the activities; I am planning to resume this week coming. Is it best to do last week's tasks this week, and just continue a week behind, or carry on with next week's and do the others another time? Or does it not matter at all? I am wondering if there is some sort of progression in the activities that makes it useful to do them in the order presented.
I do feel like there is a spiraling effect and themes will come around and around; the girls have been noticing fractals and wondering about doubles this week without any suggestions on my part!
@mirandamiranda, I would continue from where you stopped. We always design activities to stand alone well enough, because it makes it easier for people to integrate with their other plans for math. But activities in this course do come together into weekly story arcs, and then weeks form the overarching big story.
Introduction week sets up the stage for making math your own, to make beautiful, meaningful, useful math.
Inspired by Calculus week tackles the foundations of our number system in exponential growth and decay, and makes bridges to infinity and limits.
Inspired by Algebra week invites geometric and algebraic analysis of multiplication. Now that you've built some number system foundations, you can notice and build patterns.
Times Tables week has more formal activities about numbers - what you could almost call arithmetic. Now that you've built the foundations, and explored their patterns, you may appreciate some number crunching and, if you choose so, work on memorization and fluency.
This sequence follows the overarching design principles of Natural Math. If you are interested in learning more, there is my March interview in The Atlantic, and my April keynote at the Learning Revolution conference (video, slides with text).
Thank you! I would naturally do the activities in order (I'm just that kind of girl) so that works for me! I am just having trouble not reading ahead too much, as I want to stay focused on what we are working on now. I'm really pleased to have all this as a resource for future math activities too, it is wonderful.
I read and enjoyed your Atlantic interview, and thanks for sharing the video too - I am looking forward to watching it.
