Meet Matthew

Hello, everyone! I’m Matt, and I am here to help you engage students with the three important levels of mathematical concepts (Concrete, Representational, and Abstract Thinking) without you having to use too much of your personal time.  I want your students to build a Mathematical House of Knowledge that allows them to understand the meaning behind the mathematical concepts you are trying to instill in them. I truly believe that if you take your students through this mathematical journey, they will have a deeper understanding of math and how it relates to the real world.

My Goal

I know that planning lessons that take students through these mathematical concepts can be challenging and very time-consuming. It is my goal to assist you by creating lessons that involve the three mathematical ideas, so you don’t have to sacrifice personal and most importantly family time. Therefore, I create ready to use lessons that you can use immediately with your students. Each unit comes with two versions of the mini-lesson. One in PowerPoint and the other in Smart Notebook.  Along with the mini-lesson, I have provided a daily note sheet that students can use to write down daily learning targets, daily review problems, activating strategies, and summarize their learning for the day.

My Teaching Experience

As a young child, I had many opportunities to work with children and knew very early in my life that this was a passion of mine. Once I graduated High School, I went off to college to earn a degree in Elementary Education from the State University of New York in Oswego. After that, I received a job where I taught 3rd grade in Rochester, New York.  I went on to obtain my Master’s in Education from the University of Phoenix. Here I earned a degree in computer education and curriculum instruction.

After teaching 11 years of 3rd grade and one year of 4th grade, I decided to move to Georgia where I accepted a job teaching 5th grade Math in Lawrenceville, Georgia. It was during this time that I believed that I needed to begin creating and implementing the Mathematical House of Knowledge to help my students develop a deeper understanding of math and how it relates to the real world.

In 2019, I accepted a 6th grade Math position in Lawrenceville, Georgia where I continue to use the idea of building a Mathematical House of Knowledge with my students.  As I continue my journey, I have noticed the benefits with students. My struggling students are working in the concrete concept to continue to build the math concepts through manipulatives until they can move onto the representational concept. While my other math students are building their house, working towards the abstract thinking of how math works and the meaning behind it while relating it to the real world.

My Personal Life 

I spent most of my life in Upstate New York, where I met my wife. Together we have four wonderful children who keep us extremely busy. Our children range from the ages of 20, 16, 7, and 4. As a family, we enjoy vacations to the beach, traveling back to New York to visit family members, and going to sporting events to root for our favorite teams.  We love the outdoors and like to go camping, fishing, and boating when we can.