In this week's introduction, we were asked, "What would mathematics look like if we took multisensory learning seriously?" My first thought came without hesitation: it would be a whole lot messier and a lot more fun.
I suddenly pictured myself as a little girl being opened up to a world of math that I didn't understand existed. I imagined the joy and relaxation that would enter into many learners' lives as they realized they could play with their food and learn math! Creating something is less anxiety inducing for my ELL students than trying to wrestle with new and strange vocabulary such as, "Which digit is in the hundreds place?" or "How else can you represent this number?" How I would have thrived if I felt like math could include more feeling and magic than what I perceived as logic and procedures. This feeling/logic divide shaped my entire math identity. I always felt like my twin bro had the leg up in our math class—he was Mr. Logical and I was Miss Feeling Everything. It took me a lot of years to realize the validity and importance of my way of looking at things. This connects to the Cartesian/Platonic hierarchy that values abstract thought over sensory experience, but what if they don't have to be at odds? As an elementary teacher, I recognize that bringing multisensory learning into math may look different across contexts, and may feel more immediately accessible in elementary classrooms than in secondary settings.
If multisensory math is about permission to play, Vi Hart's videos are the ultimate permission slip—turning Smarties into data sets and tortillas into geometric transformations. I loved how Vi Hart took a simple candy and came up with so many mathematical questions, reminding me once again that math truly lives everywhere. It made me excited to think about how fun it would be to use Rockets to explore graphing, make guesses about what would show up the most, and think about probability. I loved the idea of making little sandwiches and looking at combinations. How fun would it be for students to play with and eat candy during math? What a great attention grabber. I do wonder about the cost of doing such a thing and how many candies I would need to make it a worthwhile experience for each child. There I go doing real life math myself—which is exactly the point. When learning feels like play, we engage with mathematical thinking naturally, even when we're just planning a lesson.
The hexaflexagon videos were a different experience entirely. I was fascinated by them—they gave me the feeling that math is indeed sparkly and magical. Watching shapes transform and hidden faces reveal themselves felt like discovering secrets. Math as wonder, not work. Math as play, not procedure. This is exactly what draws me into math and how I wish I always felt about it as a student. The way a hexaflexagon can be decorated, folded, and pinched was really hard for my brain to grasp at first. But seeing a tortilla turn into a hexaflexagon—that changed everything. Suddenly I could see what happens as the guacamole and sour cream went into the middle. The 3D, edible version made visible what the paper version had kept hidden from me. I could finally understand how to fold, where the faces went, why it worked. Interestingly, George Hart's bagel cutting never sparked that same click for me—I felt resistant, like it was too hard and I wasn't excited about it. The tortilla worked; the bagel didn't. This contrast crystallized why multisensory learning matters: it's not that everyone learns the same way, but that everyone needs options. Sometimes one modality doesn't click, but suddenly another does.
Even after the tortilla breakthrough in the video, I was skeptical that making one myself could top the magic I'd already experienced watching. Happily, I noticed that creating a hexaflexagon opened up more wonder in me. As I colored and decorated, I found myself noticing where edges meet, and asking questions that I would never have asked from just watching:
Will these colors show up somewhere else when I flip?
Which face is underneath—face three?
Will my markings matter?
How does this even work?
How do you know how many faces you'll get?
The experience felt magical in a different way than the video. Using my hands was quite relaxing. This didn't feel like traditional math—no one was making me quickly pick numbers or find answers to problems I didn't understand. It felt accessible to anybody. I imagine if someone was feeling tension or anxiety around math, this wouldn't trigger that response
I also found myself making design decisions. It's my birthday—I don't want to spend my whole day decorating a hexaflexagon! What shapes and designs would be satisfying but not take too long? I didn't want to be completely intricate, but I also didn't want it to look messy. I used the tools I happened to have on hand.
The more I worked, the more questions emerged: What would happen if I made this out of thicker paper? What if I made it skinnier? This led me to find a video about making six-faced hexaflexagons and another showing the folding process, which really helped when the written instructions were challenging. I appreciated that I didn't have to write numbers on the surface if I didn't want to.
Why couldn't math have been all about these magical moments when I was in school?
If multisensory math is truly about permission to play, then it cannot become another expectation layered onto an already heavy curriculum. Offering multiple modalities does not mean asking students to engage with all of them at once; rather, it means creating space for choice, curiosity, and entry points that feel safe. Play loses its power when it becomes performative or obligatory. What mattered most in my own experience with the hexaflexagon was not the number of senses involved, but the freedom to explore without urgency, correctness, or evaluation. This raises an important pedagogical question: how do we design multisensory mathematical experiences that invite wonder without overwhelming learners? Perhaps the answer lies not in adding more, but in loosening control—trusting that when learners are given permission to play, mathematical thinking will emerge naturally.
This is written beautifully, and I feel so connected to your experience. My first thought was, how have I never seen a hexaflexagon before? I’m a full-grown adult who loves math, an elementary teacher, and a master’s student in math education—how did this escape me? It makes me wonder how many other playful, embodied, and mysterious mathematical experiences are out there, just waiting to be explored. If I’m this excited, I can only imagine how enthusiastic students would be when given these opportunities.
ReplyDeleteI also relate to your point about barriers. When this week’s activity suggested using candies, my first thought was: we don’t do candy in our house! But I adapted quickly with a box of cereal. I realize that in classrooms, teachers often need to be resourceful, considering budgets (my district provides only $150 per teacher for classroom resources), environmental concerns, and access to materials. It seems balancing hands-on, tactile experiences with paper-based or verbal activities may be the most realistic approach while still creating magical learning moments.
I tried the tortilla activity, and it was delightfully messy. Even with large tortillas, I quickly realized they weren’t quite big enough. I layered peanut butter, rotated, then added jam, and my hands were covered—but it was so fun, and my children found it hilarious. I’m usually very neat and organized, so this really pushed me out of my comfort zone. It reminded me that stepping into a playful, messy experience can make math feel accessible, joyful, and deeply memorable—for both students and teachers.
Math being described as “sparkly and magical” and tied that to permission rather than just materials was amazing! I can see that feeling/logic divide you grew up with. Versions of that exist in my students all the time, especially kids who are intuitive, expressive, or language learners who think deeply but do not always connect with formal math talk right away.
ReplyDeleteYour tortilla breakthrough made me laugh. Sometimes the mathematically “equivalent” model just does not land. I have had lessons I thought were brilliant fall totally flat, then a random everyday object ends up being our saviour. My students really got hooked with negative numbers when they asked me to research more about the collapse of the makings of a downtown Kelowna building due to land instability, go figures!
Vannessa’s comment about not doing candy and switching to cereal also resonated. The sorting, comparing, combining, and predicting are the valuable parts! Her tortilla-with-kids story captures laughter, the mess, the peanut-butter hands. Those are the kinds of experiences students refer back to months later when a concept resurfaces.
You both raise such important questions about balance, access, and overwhelm. Designing for wonder without overload, for me, has meant choosing one rich material or experience and letting multiple ideas emerge from it over years instead of cramming in five modalities at once. I perpetually have to remind myself that this activity being a bit better is not worth my burnout. On accessibility, I keep thinking about offering parallel ways to engage. Build it, draw it, act it out, talk it through. Perhaps as additional options. That way sensory, motor, and emotional differences are planned for. And on play not becoming performative, I think assessment is the pressure point. The second play is graded for neatness, speed, or the “right” question, the sparkles and magic suffocates.
How do I protect playful learning spaces from being squeezed by pacing guides and coverage pressure, also in grades 10 and 11?