A goal of our mathematics instruction should be to help our students develop flexibility with numbers. For that to happen, children need to experience the meaning of numbers with concrete, hands-on experiences. Three keys to developing flexibility are counting,...
I’ve been working with my Firsties on the following TEK: 1.2(A) recognize instantly the quantity of structured arrangements Although it is not mentioned in the TEK, the mathematical word for this skill is subitizing. The dot patterns on dice and dominoes are...
You’ve simply gotta love it when an observation lesson goes way better than you could have expected! Today I was getting ready to work with my Firsties when my AP showed up for my observation. Yesterday, the students were working with two ten-frames to build and...
One of the cool things about small group instruction is that your lessons often take you down roads you never expected to travel. This week, my third graders were working on adding 3-digit numbers. We were using base-ten blocks to provide the concrete support they...
It’s not uncommon for children to be able to count to 20, but not recognize the numerals. They can easily verbally count to 20 and even beyond, but if you ask them to point to 15 on the number line they have to count from 0, and they can’t recognize 15...
