Introductions

Hello Friends,

Welcome to my first Blog post in my thirty years of living on planet Earth. My name is Cassandra and I'm happy to say that I'll be blogging about math. I have no idea what I'm doing when it comes to Blogs but I do have a small idea of what I'm doing when it comes to math, and more importantly I'm hopeful I can help make math easier for you. 

Shamu (above)

First a little background information on me. I was born in Daytona Beach, Florida where my father was a race car driver. My mother was the head whale trainer at Sea World, and yes I spent my weekends growing up feeding Shamu--the original Shamu. I was a professional surfer into my early twenties but a hungry shark ate my left leg for lunch off the North Shore of Kauai in December 2007. After I lost my tasty left leg I chose to go to school for teaching. I love community service and it's the closest thing to it in my opinion. I leave the classroom filled with love and happiness, like a deflated balloon filled up over the school day--it must be the right profession for me.

Math was a subject I feared until college. It wasn't until college that I believed it wasn't the subject (mathematics) or me (my brain) but probably how the subject was taught to me. It's  a simple subject, not much to fear at all. The importance lies with how you teach people and what works for one person may not work for another. I believe children learn by doing and by making connections to their daily lives. Simply learning to find the answer to a problem won't cut it. My blogs will teach basic elementary math and will give you ideas on how to make meaningful connections to the math we ask our students to learn. 

I'm going to end each of my Blogs with "Carpe diem," translating to "seize the day" -- I hope you continue on with me friends. My first official math Blog will be about data and measurements, stay tuned.

"In this world, nothing can be said to be certain except death and taxes." - Benjamin Franklin

Carpe diem,

Cass

*One link that may be helpful for teaching in Arizona or for learning where your child/children should be academically for their grade level is:
1) Common Core State Standards - http://www.corestandards.org/Math