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Non-traditional forms of instruction provide exciting and engaging opportunities for mathematics education. This article proposes the use of mathematical figures painted on the school playground as an environment to support mathematical teaching, learning, and understanding. Teachers plan mathematics lessons to take advantage of the playground figures and present new topics, reinforce current topics, and review previous topics. Figures were chosen to support mathematical concepts required by the curriculum and state and national standards. The intentional blank portions of the playground figures allowed for adjustment of lesson activities to meet different grade level and individual student needs, as well as making the figures interactive with the use of sidewalk chalk. A teacher handbook suggests activities for each figure by grade level, and teachers often create their own ideas for using the figures. Students like the change of perspective and teachers feel that such lessons help to raise standardized test scores because the information is better retained. The lessons addressed multiple learning styles, help with vocabulary for English Language Learners, and infuse higher thinking levels into lessons. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the population of English language learners continues to increase, schools must implement educational practices that will help students develop the necessary linguistic and academic skills for success in school. Brain compatible teaching and the second language acquisition processes complement each other. Brain compatible teaching enhances students' ability to develop a second language successfully. Teachers at the Blanche Moore Early Childhood Development Center, a dual language school, provide the classroom environment incorporating brain compatible strategies into their daily implementation of the school curriculum to help students develop bilingualism and biliteracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]