These Kids Know Beans About Math

These kids know beans about math. In fact, they know more than 250,000 dried pinto beans about math, to be exact.

Elementary school students at Saks Elementary School in Calhoun County, Alabama collected the beans, and used them to demonstrate to parents and other students how they collected them and used them in math calculations as well as lessons about the five food groups.

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The beans were collected over three weeks as part of a project based learning initiative. Students used photos and videos that they created themselves to demonstrate how they used the beans in counting projects, and to share what they knew about nutrition and hunger problems in the area

They brought all the beans into the school gymnasium to demonstrate their project, with the help of their teacher Brooke. McFry. When the project was finished, the beans were donated to a local group that helps the homeless, The Right Place.

“It encompassed everything,” McFry said about the project’s scope. “We incorporated technology, and the students were so excited to get hands-on. This was a huge success.”

McFry said the pinto bean project wasn’t in her lesson plan at the start of the year, but that changed when one of her students, Nallely Mora, said she was struggling with a math lesson plan. Mora had trouble counting large numbers, and McFry said the solution was to get more beans to help her visualize large quantities.

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Mora did not know she was the catalyst for the project until Friday’s presentation.

“She was so thrilled when she knew she was going to be in the presentation,” McFry said. “She couldn’t believe it.”

Mora started and concluded the presentation by explaining how collecting the beans helped her counting skills, and McFry said Mora is one of her “star students” in math.