Today I’m grateful for Newton and Descartes.
- kdw
- Nov 9, 2022
- 2 min read
11.9.2022
It rained during recess today. The rain clouds were taunting us all morning and my fingers were crossed that the rain would hold off until my class had had a chance to run around outside and play. I stuck my head outside the classroom about two minutes before recess and found it very overcast, but still dry. I lined the kids up to go out to the playground, but as I opened the door for them to file orderly outside (or rather run crazily to secure their favorite swings) the sky opened up and the rain poured down. Talk about a ruining a Kindergartener’s day!!
We did a few indoor recess activities which helped distract and occupy the kids a bit, but the disappointment and the unreleased energy were still palpable. We had a lot of energy and nowhere for it to go. We also had an unfinished math lesson and a teacher struggling to keep everyone’s attention.
Then, in what could only be described as divine inspiration from the late great mathematicians themselves, I realized that I had yet to introduce this year’s Kindergarteners to our math mascots, Newton and Descartes. Newton and Descartes, aside from their obvious high level contributions to the mathematics world (although, please don’t ask me what these contributions were because I most definitely forgot this information long, long ago), also serve as characters in our math curriculum. Newton is a dog and Descartes is his fun-loving cat friend. They show up in workbook pages and story problems and in an occasional math game or song. But most notably, they also exist in puppet form.
I grabbed my Newton and Descartes puppets, introduced the characters to my students, and the rest is history. Newton asked questions, Descartes added some comical commentary, and together the duo taught the remainder of my math lesson. The kids were so into it that they hardly realized they were working. Hallelujah!
Those golden math moments only lasted about 10 minutes, but those 10 minutes were definitely worth something in my world today. Thank you, Newton and Descartes, for your dramatic representation of part-part-whole today in Kindergarten math class. You saved this teacher’s lesson and her sanity as well.
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