One of our goals in the math department this year is to foster a culture of math that is collaborative, accessible and most importantly, fun!  Several times throughout the year we have planned Fun Fridays with today being our first one.  During these days, students from different classes work together in small groups on one challenging problem during their usual class period.  Students are purposefully placed in mixed groups to help encourage students to leverage their unique skill-sets and perspectives to come together to solve a problem they may otherwise not be able to solve on their own.  We hope students experience the value of teamwork and problem-solving on these Fun Fridays and that they realize that math is much broader than what they might currently be studying in their current math class.  We also hope this gives them a chance to practice grit, resilience, and resourcefulness.  Our whole department is working hard to promote the growth mindset with our students and this is one way we are modeling it.

Today was our first Fun Friday.  Each group received a bag with 27 cubes in total – 9 different colors, 3 of each color.  They were instructed to create a 3x3x3 cube with each of the 9 colors represented on each face, similar to a 3-D Sudoku puzzle. 

   

This was a problem that had multiple ways to solve or strategies to implement.  It was so fun as teachers to watch students work together to try and solve this.  They would think they had it solved only to realize their last cube wouldn’t work.  Many students tried and tried again with some finding success in the end and others not being able to solve it. 

  

  

As students were working you could hear teachers telling students that it was OK if they didn’t solve it.  Their brains were growing as they learned from their mistakes!  Synapses were firing!  

 It was great to listen to their different strategies and ways of approaching the problem.  
 
Mr. Cushing and Mr. Schooler stopped by to try their hand at solving it.

   


They were modeling to our students the struggle of working on a problem that they couldn’t immediate see the solution to and also the joy that comes when you finally solve it.  
  
We would love to invite any faculty and staff members to come join us on our next Fun Friday October 5th.  It will take place in every period in rooms 2, 5, 6, 7, & 8.  Our first Fun Friday was a success and we are already excited about planning our next one!