My husband I recently visited Hawai’i as a celebration of 30 years of marriage. We have been trying to get there to celebrate milestone anniversaries for 20 years and this year we finally made it happen! There’s a whole lot I could say about the trip, but I’ll stay on topic here and give you the run down on where the…
Have you ever been driving along and realized the car is running low on gas? You start looking for gas stations and you choose the one with the lowest price on the sign, even though it only saves you a couple of cents. What you are actually doing here is comparing unit rates. How much the gas will cost for each…
Today, instead of talking about a specific way you use math every day, I’m going to take you through a bit of the backstory of the podcast. I’ll share why I’m so passionate about the topic of math people and why I believe it’s important to see yourself as a math person. Back in 2008, I did something I never, ever…
When I say the phrase “problem-solving” what comes to mind? Does your mind immediately jump to math class and the dreaded word problems? Or do you think about how you navigated the situation when you got a flat tire on a road trip? If you are like most people I talk to, I bet you think about word problems. As a…
Are you an artist? Meaning, do you create in some way for personal enjoyment, self-expression, to sell as a source of income, or for some other reason? Maybe you like to draw, paint, or sculpt. Maybe you use words to create by writing poetry or stories or songs. Maybe you make things to sell, like jewelry, purses, or clothing. Maybe you…
Think back to math class for a minute. Any math class will do. When the teacher asked a question or presented you with a problem to solve, was it understood they were most often looking for an exact answer? The ONE correct solution. As someone who spent some years leading math classrooms, I know this answer is YES. It’s one of…
I often open the first day of math classes by asking students to use one word to describe the subject of mathematics. As you can imagine, the responses vary widely. Math is fun. Math is easy. Math is impossible. Math is numbers. Math is rules. Math is necessary. There are many, many more words I’ve seen students use to describe math.…
If you’ve followed me at all in the past several years, you probably know that I often hear people say they just aren’t math people. You also likely know how I feel about that. I mean, that’s really why this website exists…to provide resources and ideas to help you understand how math works. Some of you will use the information to…
A three act math discussion Many years ago, my husband’s best friend made this bank for him using and old post office box. They were both postal workers and this friend is no longer with us, so this bank is pretty special to us. We use it to save our pennies. I shared about this on social media a few years…
Last week my class participated in Global School Play Day. I was a bit nervous about an entire day of “unstructured” play with my high energy crowd, but I stepped through my fears and let it happened. It wasn’t completely unstructured, I guess. Our day is kind of broken up into manageable chucks with the placement of specials, lunch, and recess…
My t-shirt says it all. “When will I ever use this?” is a question I get a LOT as a math teacher. Especially from middle school level students. Believe it or not, I’ve even had conversations about this at the college level. Have you ever told someone (maybe even your child) that you didn’t see the point in learning algebra? That…
How we talk to kids matters. But did you know that the way the English language names numbers is often confusing and doesn’t reinforce important mathematical concepts? If math is about patterns, then counting should be a pattern, right? Well, counting does follow a pattern, but the language we use doesn’t make it intuitive. Think about the names of the numbers:…
For a while now I have wanted to write about this fantastic resource. Well, I am finally getting around to it! YouCubed.org is a site that was founded by Stanford professor of education, Jo Boaler, “to give teachers, parents and students the resources and ideas they need to inspire and excite students about mathematics.” The information and resources here are backed…