Of Rabbits and Math Guys

Several years ago, early in my incarnation as Math Guy, I walked into Sue's third and fourth grade classroom ready to present a lesson. I was surprised to see that a bunch of rabbits had replaced the children that day.



The class had been reading a novel about rabbits or rabbitlike creatures, Sue explained, and several children had come up with the idea of dressing like rabbits one day, and the idea had met with approval from basically everybody.

Some had done just the basics--a few face-paint whiskers, a kush ball for a tail. Others had added a carefully-stapled set of ears made from construction paper. A few had gone whole hog (whole bunny?) and dressed all in white or brown or black with socks and slippers and even gloves. They looked...different. They looked...creative.

"Greetings, rabbits," I said, and asked them to take their seats so we could begin the math instruction for the day. For rabbits, they did reasonably well sitting still, and they did an even better job of listening (must've been the big ears).

My planned lesson was on what kids often like to call "timesing." We began by reviewing some basic multiplication facts and then moved on to multiplication strategies and the link between multiplication and addition, and just before I sent them to the tables to do some independent work, it suddenly occurred to me that I was--

--that's right--

--teaching rabbits to multiply.

Bada-bing!

True story, too.