Whiz Kids: Matt Guarraia’s Fifth-Grade Class

Quaker Hill Elementary School fifth-grade teacher Matt Guarraia, like every other elementary school teacher in Connecticut, has a directive to teach his students fundamental skills. How well those skills are learned is quantified in the Connecticut Mastery Test, with results important to all school districts.

But just because the testing is formulaic and structured doesn’t mean the teaching has to be. So instead of hammering away on long division and delivering cookie-cutter writing prompts, he had his students build a car.

“The other teachers would have just made us write a paper on a car or had us do math,” fifth-grader Clancy Susi said. “But Mr. Guarraia had us do this instead. It was so much more fun, and we learned a lot, too.”

Guarraia had his students build a full model car out of wood, using math and a variety of other subjects along the way. First, the kids built a small model of the car, and then had to make the same one 16 times bigger, using math to figure out every measurement.

They also built the car by hand, with students taking turns putting in screws, painting and cutting. In the end they had a finished product, which all the kids took pride in.

“Building the car was really exciting,” student Josh Smith said. “It was so much fun putting it all together.”

Each student eagerly showed off which exact screw they put in, and the cuts they made themselves. Also, because it was a NASCAR car, each student designed his or her own sponsor.

They learned math from measuring wood and extrapolating from a model, but it wasn't the only subject they learned. They also wrote letters asking NASCAR racers about what it takes to win (while inadvertently learning English), and figured out what makes a car both fast and efficient (while inadvertently learning science), among other things.

“We packed everything into this project,” Guarraia said. “We got everything that is on the CMTs involved.”

The students loved it, almost as much as they loved their teacher. Mr. Guarraia is “the coolest [teacher] … I’ve learned the most from him,” Shannon Busciey said.  “A lot of teachers are anti-doing stuff. Mr. Guarraia loves to have us do stuff.”