Hello Shoreham families,
My name is Andrew Hirsch and I am new at Shoreham Elementary School, however I am not new to the district. For many years, I was a classroom teacher at Cornwall Elementary School and during this time, I found enjoyment and success with helping children develop their understanding and appreciation of mathematics.
The math specialist role is a new position and the primary purpose is to help improve student math outcomes. I work with each of the classroom teachers to plan and support the development of high leverage instructional strategies to meet the needs of all students.
Currently I am helping the fourth and fifth graders understand more about fractions and decimals. We have made many connections to the real world and have focused our attention on the clock and money models to develop our understanding of parts of a whole. You could ask your child questions about fractions of an hour or fractions of a dollar.
In the second and third grade this month, we are learning about multiplication, place value and how to tell time on an analog clock. The multiplication concept of equal groups is foundational and we have modeled this by using arrays, cube trains, skip counting and looping and grouping. You could ask your child to solve single digit multiplication problems and please also ask them questions related to telling time.
The youngest students in the building are working on counting collections, finding numbers that make 5, 10 and 20, as well as addition and subtraction strategies. Recently we have introduced some domino games to practice these math concepts. You could ask your child to count a small collection or a larger collection by making groups of 10.
I have really enjoyed the beginning of the school year and the opportunity to meet so many new people. Shoreham is a very welcoming community and I look forward to strengthening relationships as the year progresses.
Sincerely,
Andrew Hirsch
Math Instructional Specialist
