If I asked you to name a math skill that students have trouble mastering, odds are that solving math word problems might enter the conversation. We often think that just by solving more and more word problems, students will somehow get better at it. But how about if...
One of the perks of being a math instructional coach is that you get to visit classrooms on a daily basis. On one of those visits, I observed this 1st-grade number of the day routine using ten frames. The daily routine begins by showing the number of the day (which is...
As a young girl, I briefly took gymnastics lessons. Anybody else? I have to admit that I was not very flexible—I couldn’t do a smooth backward roll to save my life! That said, one of my favorite Olympic events is the gymnastics competition. Every four years,...
The math standards are carefully aligned to gradually develop concepts over a period of time. A great example is telling time. In First Grade, students are required to tell time to the hour and half hour. In Second Grade, the standards extend it to five-minute...
Raise your hand if you wish your students were more confident and successful in solving word problems. Right, that’s what I thought. And the answer probably doesn’t change much based on your grade level. Face it, word problems are just plain hard!...
