1st Day of School

For the last few years I have started the year by giving students a Sudoku puzzle when they come in the first day of school.  I explain the rules and let them work in small groups.  After they work a few minutes I stop them and pose the question “Is Sudoku math?”  I have them write down yes or no and some sort of justification.  I begin emphasizing that I am more concerned with the justification than the actual answer.  This emphasis is something that will continue throughout the year.

The distribution of answers varies greatly from class to class and year to year.  The discussion usually follows the same progression of key points though.

   Sudoku is math because it involves numbers.

   Sudoku is not math because there are no calculations.  You could use any 9 distinct symbols.

   Sudoku is math because it uses logic/problem solving/critical thinking.

I really enjoy leading students back and forth in this discussion.  There are some great thoughts into the structure of math (numbers, symbols, operations, logic,...). In the end, I try to leave the question open.  Many students feel uncomfortable without a clear answer.  I want them to start to become comfortable with uncertainty.  I want them to experience math in my class with an open mind and decide for themselves.  Based on their experiences with math so far, they may not think Sudoku is math.  Hopefully, I can provide them with new experiences this year so they don’t just think of math as numbers and calculations.

After exploring the MTBoS, I feel as though I need to provide my students with more explicit guidance for working collaboratively in groups.  I love this broken circles activity from Sarah Carter.  I’m hoping I can work this in without losing the opportunity to have a rich discussion on defining math on the first day.  Ideally, I would like to set the tone for the year by challenging students’ beliefs of math while also pushing students to work collaboratively.

I listed a few other activities I came across that I really like as well.

Henri Picciotto assigns for homework a short math autobiography with goals for math this year.

Jon Orr uses a “Math is like…” prompt.

I've used the Marshmallow Challenge at the end of the year after testing but it might be useful to start the year with it.