Word problems are the bane of every teacher’s existence. But word problems shouldn’t be! Why? Because life is a word problem. We use math every day in our lives to solve problems. Math is about…
It wasn’t until a few years after the Common Core was adopted in California did I start teaching students how to round on a number line. Before that, what did I use? Rounding rhymes, tricks,…
Unitizing is not only a mathematical term, but it’s also a business term. Have you ever wondered when businesses ship hundreds of boxes, how do they keep track? By unitizing! The shipping company will unitize…
Teaching multiplication can take many forms. Teachers are always finding new and engaging ways of teaching multiplication. Whether it be using manipulatives, arrays, songs, tips or strategies, there is no one way of teaching multiplication.…
The gateway to learning algebra and higher forms of mathematics is multiplication. It is critically important that elementary school children learn the concept of multiplication as well as, just learning the multiplication facts. I am…
What are some of the strategies you teach your students or children to add two and three digit numbers? Do you use compensation? Or do you begin teaching with the standard algorithm? Teaching students to…
Just the other day, I taught a lesson about making a TEN to add sums greater than ten. For example, with 8 + 6, you could increase the 8 to a 10 and reduce the 6…
Most teachers report that students struggle with multiplication fluency. In fact, the problem is pervasive enough that even my son’s eighth-grade math teacher said the same thing at his Back To School Night presentation to the…
Teaching second grade has given me a much better understanding of how second graders are prepared for third grade. If you examine the Common Core State Standards for Math, you will see that place value…
What is it that teachers need more of? Time and money! There’s never enough time in a day to teach everything we need to teach nor is there sufficient time in the day to prepare…
My class has been learning to find the area of shapes for a few weeks now. But now it was time to move on to find the area of irregular shapes. So far, my students…
Now that my students were familiar with comparing and ordering fractions, the next step was to have them comparing fractions using Google Slides. It is one thing to be able to show how to compare…
In Part 1 of How to Compare Fractions, I explained how I used fraction strips to have students explore fraction sizes. Comparing fractions and their sizes visually helped my students establish a benchmark fraction of…
Before I started teaching my third graders to compare fractions, I wanted to assess what they already knew about fractions. True story. I asked my students to write in their journal and complete this sentence:…
Did you ever think that as a third-grade teacher or even as an elementary teacher you would be teaching the Distributive Property of Multiplication? When I started teaching over 30 years ago, there weren’t even…
