Student learning is no accident!
A while back I took stock of what we were doing as a math department to improve kids’ math fluency. It seemed that every year we had a chunk of kids who came up to sixth grade with amazing fact fluency. We had another chunk who fought with basic addition and multiplication much like struggling readers fought with multisyllabic words…. Read More
In the next few posts, I’m going to focus on Differentiating Instruction in the Math Classroom. I will give you three strategies you can use immediately in the lessons you already have planned- to reach all of those kids! I promise not to ask you to do ANYTHING that wastes your time. I promise to only save you time.
If you’re thinking about fractions, you might be a 5th grade teacher… Thanks to the Common Core State Standards, fifth grade now throws the wildest fraction party on the block! I taught 6th grade math back when that was fraction central, and I learned 3 key things along the way. They have been just applicable in the 5th grade classrooms… Read More
If teaching fifth and sixth graders has taught me anything, it’s that fractions and decimals can be ABSTRACT and TRICKY… and that kids have to be developmentally ready to perform operations on them. The good news is- the standards aren’t encouraging us to get kids to add, subtract, multiply and divide 5/32 and 16/71! We make equivalent fractions as a… Read More
We have moved on to subtraction with renaming (2.NBT.7). You might call this regrouping… but really- if we think literally about what’s happening- we’re also giving the values new names! 50+10 is a different name for 60. So, renaming, regrouping… you know what we’re doing! What’s Working I’ve been doing a lot of this work with students in small groups…. Read More
In my second grade classroom, I’ve recently identified a troubling gap in my students’ learning… Counting. I know how important counting is… and we have been counting all year. We count while we wait in line, we count backwards and forwards, by 2s, 3s, 5s, 10s and more. We start in the hundreds, we start in the teens… So, why… Read More
Love getting feedback like this!! I agree:) This was everyone’s favorite math center when I taught second grade. And the kids LOVED bringing their own differentiated game boards home to play with their families for homework!
Every game board comes with a color by code sheet for more practice! #iteachmath #iteachsecond #mathgames
Kindergarten: While American Kids Read, Their Finnish Peers Play
theatlantic.com
Forget the Common Core, Finland’s youngsters are in charge of determining what happens in the classroom.
