The Only Way to Learn Math? Do the Math!

There’s a quote I recently turned into a poster for our classroom:

“Math is not a spectator sport. The only way to learn math is to do math.”

And let me tell you, it’s so true in first grade.

You can have the cutest anchor charts, the brightest manipulatives, and the cleverest chants and songs...But until kids are actually solving problems by thinking, trying, struggling, doing, they're not really learning math.

Math is often messy! That's a good thing!

Click pic to download. 

🎯 What “Doing Math” Looks Like in First Grade

“Doing math” doesn’t mean sitting quietly and getting everything right. It looks like:

• Kids talking through a strategy with a partner

• Hands-on manipulatives: using counters, fingers, ten frames, etc., and then talking through strategies

• Getting an answer wrong, but being able to explain their thinking

• Drawing several different versions of the same story problem until it clicks

• Hearing “This is hard!” followed by “Ohhh wait, I got it!”

• Working with partners via "games" and learning how to be an ENGAGED partner

• reworking problems over and over again until success

• GRIT

These moments matter more than a perfect worksheet.

My Real-Life Math Moments

Highs:

• When a student who’s been unsure suddenly explains a strategy to a classmate and lights up like a firework

• When math journals are messy—but FULL of thinking

• When they make up their own word problems and giggle at their wild scenarios (I’ve had unicorns eating 7 cupcakes and flying away with 2...)

Lows (but still learning):

• When kids erase their work because it “looks wrong”

• When they give up too quickly and say “I don’t get it!” without even trying

• When a fast finisher calls out the answer and others stop thinking

That’s where I come back to:

“The only way to learn math is to do math.”

I remind my class: Mistakes are part of the process. We don’t watch math. We do math.

 Ideas to Get Kids Doing the Math

Here are some easy, go-to strategies I love:

• Math Journals with open-ended prompts: “Show me 3 ways to make 10.” I'm all about the open-ended questions!

• Partner problem-solving with mini-whiteboards

• Story-based word problems with drawings and labels

• Math talks where kids explain “how they know” even if their answer is wrong. 

• Hands-on games that require thinking, not just speed

• Infusing math into Morning Meeting (I use Which One Doesn't Belong as my activity once a week.)

• Providing kids with "Math Refresher Baggies" so they have other options besides "read a book" when they have a few extra minutes here and there.

None of these are fancy. But they work because kids are engaged.

🪄 Final Thoughts

First grade math shouldn’t feel like a race to get the “right” answer. It should feel like a puzzle to figure out.

If we want our students to truly understand numbers, patterns, and problem-solving… we have to let them wrestle with it, play with it, do it.

So here’s your reminder (and mine!):
Math is not a spectator sport. Let’s give them the time and space to get in the game.