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…
Scene 1: In a typical first grade classroom. Student: {staring at a broken pencil} Teacher: Looks like your pencil is broken. Student: {shifts stare to teacher} Teacher: What do you think you should do? Student: {continues to stare at teacher} Early in my teaching career I had a class of first graders in a fairly large elementary school. I don’t recall…
One of the questions I get asked most frequently as the school year comes to an end is What can we do over summer break to keep our children from forgetting what they learned during the school year? Oh, the dreaded “summer slide.” It’s one of the reasons I loved the year round schedule used at one of the schools where…
There are only a few instructional days left with each of my classes before end-of-year testing begins and things have been getting a bit crazy, as they tend to do this time of year. I finally finished up the coursework for this workshop last weekend and have spent some time letting it all ruminate in my head, partly because I’m a…
So, this week is kind of where it all starts to come together. How to take everything we know to plan a really engaging lesson that students latch on to and that moves their thinking forward. Being an Ignition Expert means you, as the teacher, take into account where students have been mathematically, anticipate strategies and thinking they will use, and…