If you have school-aged children, you might have noticed that learning math today looks nothing like it did when you were in school. Unlike the approach we experienced as students and the approach that still persists in many conventional schools, The Village School learning design prioritizes deep understanding over rapid rote memorization. Our goal with math (and other subjects!) is that learners are equipped with a sense of math efficacy that comes from learning to learn instead of simply learning. Spark Studio Guides have designed a math curriculum that nurtures a growth mindset creating space for young learners to feel capable and excited as they deepen their numerical fluency.
Learning at TVS in Spark Studio and beyond is based on mastery and not bound by age or time. Similar to the literacy curriculum in Spark, the Spark math curriculum is highly-structured, multi-sensory, and research-based. The Spark Math Map is a visual representation of the most important mathematical skills that Spark learners work to master, and are foundational for any young learner in providing them with both the understandings they need for our elementary math curriculum and equipping them to learn how to learn math as they encounter it in their daily lives.
You can probably remember seeing a toddler determined to hold the right number of fingers up to show their age demonstrating their earliest counting skills. Hands and toes serve as everyone’s first math manipulatives. After fingers and toes comes blocks, and in Spark Studio we introduce an engaging collection of Montessori math manipulatives. The intentionally designed manipulatives allow our youngest learners to learn math through natural play – a pedagogy we lean heavily on here at TVS.
One of the most memorable math manipulatives in Spark is called the long bead chain. Visit any Montessori classroom and you’ll see the beautiful wooden display case of carefully hanging colorful chains of beads. These color-coded beads are used to master several basic mathematical fluency skills including linear counting, skip counting, multiplying, and squaring and cubing. By physically holding and counting the beads, learners are able to internalize the idea of quantity and pattern recognition, two foundational math concepts necessary for developing math fluency. As learners string together bead chains of various lengths, they visually and kinesthetically experience mathematical progression. This process fosters independence and encourages learners to approach math as a logical, engaging journey rather than just memorization.
The bead chain is just one example of how the math curriculum in Spark Studio is both playful and purposeful. In addition to the available manipulatives, Spark learners often engage in math games that promote numerical reasoning and thinking. The benefit of multi-age learning really shines through when learners are engaged in math-based games: older learners are able to model and articulate their thinking about math in a way that inspires and influences younger learners more than any adult could ever achieve.
However, most central to our math curriculum in Spark Studio is the development of a growth mindset. We know from research and our experience at TVS that a learners’ belief in themselves when it comes to learning math is the most powerful lever in shaping their experience and success. We also know that young people – especially our own children – will internalize and model the attitudes that are modeled for them. Do you talk about math fondly – or do you proclaim yourself “not a math person”? Expressing confidence about your own mathematical abilities will help your learner (and maybe even yourself!) realize that learning math is all about attitude, effort, and practice. Even when things get tricky – just take one bead at a time!
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