Unit Construction
Recognizing Meaningful Skip Counting
A few posts ago (December 13, 2016 and February 21, 2017), I discussed the importance of skip counting with meaning. If you are teaching particular grade levels, you may have students who skip count to solve problems already. So, how can we tell if skip counting is meaningful to them? Often times, a student will… Continue Reading
An Excellent Math Program
I recently attended the Annual Conference of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) in San Antonio and came away invigorated and hopeful about our children’s future in math education. The creativity and passion on exhibit within the many sessions and workshops was impressive. I had numerous conversations with awesome teachers that eagerly shared… Continue Reading
How is Reading Instruction Different from Math Instruction?
How many times do you sit in your classroom looking over fluency tests or the latest reading assessment you gave your students? I have many memories of diving into these assessments with my grade level team. We would spend time looking at our student’s scores one child at a time. By the end of our… Continue Reading
Translation
This week my team is together in San Antonio, TX at the NCTM National Conference (National Council of Teachers of Mathematics). The conference provides teachers with a plethora of seminar choices and a variety of topics. It is a great place for teachers to interact with other teachers from around the nation and exchange ideas… Continue Reading
Mathematics of Grace: Figurative Mental Material
In my first blog about the Mathematics of Grace, I mentioned that by the end of our six week study she was able to answer 98 + 5. This was exciting for me because when we first interviewed her she wasn’t able to combine 19 + 3. She was limited to solving sums within 20.… Continue Reading
Fingers as Math Tools – Part 3
Happy Spring! Yes, this is a picture of my niece, I thought it was appropriate being that it is the beginning of spring and she is using her finger to help her explore one of the wonders of Spring. . . a ladybug! Part 1 of “Fingers as Math Tools” showed her using her fingers… Continue Reading
Procedures Built from Conceptual Understanding
A few weeks ago, I saw a post of some students dancing and singing to a set of procedures for solving a long division problem. The person who shared the video raved about how she had never seen students love math so much. Several of my friends responded by saying that they didn’t love math,… Continue Reading
Change Unknown
Recently, while working with students, we offered up a situation where nineteen counters were placed under a cloth. Seven of the counters were pulled out and the students were asked how many remained under the cloth. One child extended ten fingers, pulled them back, and then re-extended nine. He pulled back seven fingers, one by… Continue Reading
Little Steps, Part 1
There you are, sitting in your classroom after all the students have left for the day and you’re pondering just how much you think your students have grown academically throughout the school year. I know this situation, I can remember being in it many times. Unfortunately, I focused a lot more on what my students… Continue Reading
Mathematics of Grace: Limitations and Perturbation (Productive Struggle)
In my last blog I wrote about one of the first things I noticed about the mathematics of Grace. She used her fingers to solve addition situations like 7+4 by constructing more advanced finger patterns, where one finger could mean one or eleven and six fingers could mean six or sixteen. This allowed her to… Continue Reading
