I have a vivid memory of learning multiplication in third grade. My teacher, Mrs. Bowman, drew three circles on the chalkboard. Then she put five milk bottles in each one. She said this is 3…
When my oldest son was in seventh grade, he had trouble with a problem in his 7th-grade math book. It concerned one of the Properties of Addition. I couldn’t believe he didn’t know the answer!…
If you’ve ever taken geometry from elementary school to college, you know that there’s a lot of geometry vocabulary that must be learned. Think about all the geometry vocabulary for the names of the shapes,…
Are you looking for some new ideas for reviewing area and perimeter? You’ve come to the right place! In this post, I’ll show you a few different activities I use for reviewing area and perimeter…
I previously blogged about how I taught my third graders to compare fractions using models, number lines and fractions strips. But what about equivalent fractions? I used the same models, number lines and fractions strips…
Have any students who are STILL stuck on their 2s and 3s? or 4s multiplication facts? Is multiplication practice something they don’t want to do? Do they whine that multiplication practice is boring? Are you…
Do your students dread the multi-step word problems? Do they even know that it is a 2 step word problem? Join the club. I refer to these kinds of problems as CURVE BALLS. You’re expecting…
Last year was the first year I had to teach under the Common Core math standards. Under the Common Core standards for third grade math is this doozy of a standard: CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.3.OA.B.5 Teaching the Distributive Property…
By third grade we hope that most of our third graders know most of their addition and subtraction facts from memory. But usually they don’t. So do we spend precious math time drilling and killing…
If you’re a third grade teacher, you know that multiplication is that gateway math skill needed to do any higher level math taught in grades 4 and above. Without knowing how to multiply, students would…
If it’s Monday, it must be a Math Tip! As a third grade teacher, I want to know the math levels of my students who are coming into a new school year. I want to…
Why do we have to learn math? A popular question among most students. Most kids ask this question because they see math as irrelevant. Something in a textbook that’s not connected to their lives. We…
Soon my students will be taking the Math portion of the Smarter Balanced Assessment (SBAC) in May. So I thought we should revisit the Distributive Property of Multiplication (DPM) since it’s been awhile since we…
