Joyful Learning is ...

what every child should feel when learning about math...

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I was never a "math" person growing up. I found math difficult to do, and mostly it did not make sense to me in the way that my brain wanted to know things. I was the student who was always asking, "but why does it work?",  and most often the reply that came back was, "It just does."

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As I moved into teaching mathematics in elementary school I realized that I was good at explaining "how" to do the math, but still did not understand the why. Each mathematical concept was a new unit or chapter to teach. 

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I was involved in a math grant for elementary teachers at Oregon State University, and over the next three summers I was exposed to the "why's" of math. I realized that there was a trajectory of math learning, a developmental scale, and one concept actually built on top of another concept. 

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I had been teaching intermediate grades, and became curious as to what were those first developmental pieces that all other math was built upon. I came to realize that the most overlooked, but most important piece that could help our students be ready for the higher level of math was happening in PreK-2nd grade, yet many of our teachers were unaware of what these big concepts were and how to tell where our students were on the developmental scale of mathematical learning. 

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Out of this was born the idea of "Joyful Learning". A venture that could help teachers of our youngest mathematicians recognize the math that was going on around them, and how to move their students forward, giving them the foundational pieces to be curious and  "joyful learners" of math throughout their lives.