Elementary Teacher Grants Boost Math Resources
Elementary Teacher Grants Boost Math Resources
A pair of elementary math teachers in the Seaford School District are making learning more fun for students thanks to grants received from Jovia Federal Credit Union. Alexa Livingston and Amy McCoyd each received $500 through Jovia’s Funding Your Ideas Teacher Grant program, which were used for math mats.
The large floor mats help reinforce mathematical concepts through movement. Student can hop, skip and jump their way across the mats while verbally repeating numbers.
“Not only are they seeing it but they’re doing and saying it,” said Ms. Livingston, math AIS specialist at Seaford Manor Elementary School. “They’re hitting all these different senses and it helps them remember. They’re building a better understanding.”
Ms. Livingston, who is new to Seaford this year, used the grant funds to purchase two mats that reinforce number sense, including a 100 number grid and a blank number line. The number line mat would be paired with number cards and can be used to support understanding of whole numbers, decimals or fractions.
This is Ms. McCoyd’s second year receiving a Jovia teacher grant and is continuing her expansion of multiplication math mats. The Seaford Harbor Elementary School math AIS specialist purchased mats with the three and four times tables last year, and this year added six and eight.
“The kids actually enjoy it,” she said, noting the positive feedback from students since getting the first set of mats last year. “They’re excited to learn their facts as they're jumping up, down and around.”
Ms. McCoyd, in her 30th year in the district and sixth as a math specialist, added that the mats promote differentiated instruction. She typically works with small groups of students for a half-hour and does not want them sitting at a table for that entire time. Learning through movement has shown positive results, she explained.
The math teachers expressed their gratitude to Jovia for these grants as well as for its continued support of Long Island teachers. They added that the math mats are a durable and valuable resource to support math learners in multiple elementary grades.
