Starting the 2011-2012 School Year

It has been more than three years since I started this blog and yet this is only my second complete entry. Since starting and then stopping my blog postings, I have continued tutoring at the Carl Hayden Community Center in west Phoenix. Each week, I bring in worksheets with grade appropriate math problems for kids and each week I and (it seems) most of the kids enjoy working through the problem sets.
I like to think they get value out of my being there, if for no other reason than I care about them and I care that they know math but I have always been concerned about the relevance of the worksheets I bring in each week. Specifically, my worksheets do not track along with any particular lesson plan. I have made several unsuccessful attempts to collaborate with a nearby school so that at least my worksheets can reinforce what the kids are learning in school but I have not had much interest expressed by any of the 3-4 schools in the area so I have continued developing my own worksheets and following my own amateur lesson plans.
This summer though, I decided to try something new. I went back to the 2010 Arizona Math Standards, which I have occasionally referred to in the past and decided that I could develop worksheets for each of the major topics the Arizona Department of Education wants schools to address. Since I know the kids who come to the center and know something about their math challenges, I could tailor the worksheets to the kids at the center.
Therefore, with that vision, I was off. I have begun creating worksheets based on the Arizona standards. From the structure of these standards and the number of times I have been able to tutor in past years, I am trying to create 30 individual worksheets for each grade level. To break things up, every 5-6 weeks I plan to do something else like playing Math Jeopardy or building marshmallow bridges or something else vaguely related to math. This gives me 35-36 weeks of tutoring material.
This will be quite a bit of work but if I am successful, at the end of the year, I will have created a highly relevant supplemental math program for the kids at the center. If I am unsuccessful, at least I will have better material to bring to the center each week.
In any event, school starts for most of the kids this week or next. On Wednesday, I will bring in my first set of work sheets linked to the standards. I am excited about this approach and ready for the new school year!

2010 Arizona Math Standards:

http://www.ade.az.gov/standards/math/2010MathStandards/

First Blog Entry

Hello,
I am an engineer in Phoenix who also tutors math at a community center in southcentral Phoenix. The children who typically attend range in grades from Pre-K through High School but my primary work focuses on tutoring kids in the Kindergarten to 7th Grade range.
Kerry
4/1/08