The Floor Is Fractions: Santa Barbara Kids Learn Math on Playground
Santa Barbara Foundation and Others Back Summer Grant Project for Visual and Kinesthetic Playground Math at Franklin School
Number wheels and grids painted on concrete help math come alive. At Franklin Elementary’s summer school, Santa Barbara students are a hop, skip, and a jump away from learning how to add, subtract, and multiply.
These kids are not learning by sitting alone in a wood-desk prison doing math worksheets; they’re learning outside, on teams, by competing against the clock to complete equations. The program is a summer grant project involving the Santa Barbara Foundation, Santa Barbara Educational Foundation, Tom Biesanz (a k a MisterNumbers on YouTube), UC Santa Barbara graduate students studying education, and the City Parks and Recreation Department’s Summer Fun Program at Franklin Elementary.
“Simon says jump to seven and three,” says program teacher Elaina Leddon, who recently received her master’s in education from UCSB. The kids follow the instructions, forming connections between the numbers underneath their sneakers and how they combine to make 10. If they want to find pairs that add up to 11, that calls for a round of Monkey in the Middle.
