Math at Advent
Math at Advent is approached as both a creative exploration and a structured discipline. Grounded in the belief that children are natural problem-solvers and meaning-makers, our math curriculum integrates the rigor of Everyday Mathematics, developed by the University of Chicago, with the Reggio Emilia Approach of inquiry, collaboration, and hands-on discovery.
The Everyday Mathematics program provides a comprehensive framework that builds strong number sense, computational fluency, and conceptual understanding across all grade levels. Concepts such as place value, geometry, measurement, fractions, and data are introduced early and revisited regularly in a spiraling sequence, ensuring that children develop deep mastery over time.
Problem-solving and real-world applications are central, encouraging students to see mathematics as both a language and a tool for interpreting and engaging with the world around them. Math learning is project-based, collaborative, and visible. Students are invited to represent their thinking through drawings, manipulatives, models, and dialogue, making their reasoning explicit and open for reflection.
Teachers act as facilitators and guides, carefully observing student strategies and posing questions that increase complexity and critical thinking. Group investigations and individual explorations often emerge from classroom projects, allowing mathematics to connect authentically with children’s interests and experiences.
This approach nurtures not only mathematical proficiency but also confidence, creativity, and joy in working and thinking with numbers. By weaving together the structured progression of Everyday Mathematics with the open-ended inquiry of the Reggio Emilia Approach, we cultivate learners who appreciate the beauty of math and see it as both logical and imaginative—a discipline to explore, understand, and enjoy.
What is “spiraling” in math?
One of the key features of the Everyday Mathematics program is its spiraling approach to teaching. Instead of covering a math topic once and moving on, concepts are introduced in small steps, revisited many times throughout the year, and built upon with increasing complexity.
For example, students might be introduced to fractions early in the year, return to them later when comparing or adding fractions, and encounter them again when learning about decimals and percentages. This repeated exposure helps students strengthen their understanding and master concepts over time.
Spiraling also mirrors how children naturally learn—by practicing skills in different situations and connecting new ideas to what they already know. Over time, this approach builds a stronger, more flexible foundation in math.
From the Classroom
How Advent students use math to engage with and interpret our world
Fifth and sixth grade students researched past Newbery Award winners, focusing on the races, genders, and religions of the authors. They collected data and organized it into categories, then converted the information into percentages to better understand representation and diversity over time. Using these percentages, students created clear and colorful pie charts in Canva to visually display their findings, and compared it to data on gender, race, and religion in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
This project gave the students practice and conceptual understanding around ratios, data, and proportions, while sharpening core computation skills. By graphing with social awareness, students were encouraged to see and think about how mathematics can help analyze real-world issues such as equity, diversity, and inclusion in literature and publishing.