Math Drawings: Good Stuff for Teachers, Parents, and Students

Mary originally created the Math Drawings to capture the imaginations of reluctant learners. It was a way to present an opportunity for those students -- who never succeeded at anything academic -- to finally succeed at something. Since Mary believes that success builds on success, she surmised that this success could be the catalyst that ignites those students’ passion for the course. Going into this project, she knew students loved to draw because she had been confiscating surreptitious art work -- created at inappropriate times in class -- for years. So, Math Drawings seemed to be a natural step to boost enthusiasm for the course. The very first lesson, “Tin Cans,” proved her right. It was a smashing success. Quickly word spread until, all her students wanted to work with her Math Drawings. Soon Mary was forced to add a more advanced supplement to each drawing, -- which she called “Differentiation,”-- to challenge the older or more advanced students.

Mary originally created the Math Drawings to capture the imaginations of reluctant learners. It was a way to present an opportunity for those students -- who never succeeded at anything academic -- to finally succeed at something. Since Mary believes that success builds on success, she surmised that this success could be the catalyst that ignites those students’ passion for the course. Going into this project, she knew students loved to draw because she had been confiscating surreptitious art work -- created at inappropriate times in class -- for years. So, Math Drawings seemed to be a natural step to boost enthusiasm for the course. The very first lesson, “Tin Cans,” proved her right. It was a smashing success. Quickly word spread until, all her students wanted to work with her Math Drawings. Soon Mary was forced to add a more advanced supplement to each drawing, -- which she called “Differentiation,”-- to challenge the older or more advanced students. This latest edition of the book contains five drawings with their respective differentiations. The titles are, “Tin Cans,” “City by the Sea,” “Roman Arches,” “Country Road,” and the latest addition, “Eagle,” taken with permission from the work of artist, Marilyn Grame. Each drawing is created in as many as 30 illustrated steps, with the most current line in each step highlighted. Also, the caption for each illustrated step is laced with the vocabulary that forms the math lesson.

Math Drawings creator, Mary Smale, has been a math and art instructor in the Los Angeles area for more than 35 years. She was also featured on the popular television show Homework Hotline (on KLCS, a PBS station in Los Angeles) where she donned funny costumes and presented math as it may have been experienced by weird or wonderful characters from history, literature, and movies. Such notables as Julius Caesar’s mother-in-law, actor Jackie Chan’s grandmother, Jack’s mother from “Jack and the Beanstalk,” a fading rock star, a stressed out telemarketer, a goofy geologist, an inept caterer, a frustrated teacher, and whistlers mother, from the famous portrait by James Whistler, were among her most popular characters. But audience response soared whenever she taught with her Math Drawings - - so much so that eventually her fellow teachers urged her to compile all of the drawings and instructions into this book. She is a mother, grandmother, and is the widow of the renowned jazz pianist and music arranger, Bob Smale, who was and is a pianist on the Lawrence Welk TV show, which is one of the longest continuous-running TV shows in the world – 61 years and counting. Her book, Math Drawings: Good Stuff for Teachers, Parents, and Students, is in its Fifth Edition. She lives in the San Fernando Valley and continues to teach, draw, and write.