I hope you will enjoy this teacher review of Use Your Math Power books from  the Valley View School District.  Primary teachers in this Illinois district recently received copies of the Use Your Math Power picture books. The Director of Pre K – 5 Math and Science shared the books with her teachers.  Now teachers are sharing the books  and activities with their students to support their work solving math problems.

“The story math books are an excellent resource to encourage inquiry based learning.  The stories are engaging and hold the students’ attention.  The books have problems at the end of the story that naturally lead to students working collaboratively or independently.  The book we read today, “Penguins on Parade”, had an open ended question at the end that students performed at different levels.  For example, some students went above 300, some above 200, and all students at least met the success criteria of at least 100.  I would encourage every teacher to use these books as part of intervention time, or as an extension of daily math lessons.  I would say the only con for me was it took about an hour to complete the entire activity, but teachers can split it up.”        -Saeed Ghafoor (1^st grade teacher, Valley View 365U)

Our district enjoys a diverse community, providing many settings for learning, sharing, and celebrating. The Board of Education works in partnership with the community to provide engaged learning opportunities and a safe environment that result in continuous learning for all students.