by Megan Murray | Jun 18, 2018 |
I’ve been really lucky to spend time in a grade 1 classroom this spring, as they tackle the final number unit of the year. 1U7 is the culmination of students’ work with addition, subtraction, and place value. Building on the work of the earlier number units, it...
by Megan Murray | May 21, 2018 |
The other day I visited a class that was at the very beginning of How Many Tens? How Many Ones?, the final unit of the grade 1 sequence on Addition, Subtraction and the Number System. The class began with a conversation in which they modeled, recorded, and discussed...
by Keith Cochran | Apr 2, 2018 |
Have you ever been teaching (or leading professional development) and asked a really good question only to be met with silence? We all have teacher moves in our back pocket for situations like this—maybe do a turn and talk, ask the student if they’d like to call on...
by Keith Cochran | Mar 19, 2018 |
On a recent site visit, I was observing in a fourth grade classroom. The teacher started the lesson (Unit 6, Session 2.1) by writing “3/2″ on the board and asking students to name the fraction. Most said “three halves” although one or two said “two...
by Megan Murray | Mar 12, 2018 |
On a recent visit to a small district in the Midwest, I got the chance to visit a third grade class that was working on division (3U5, Session 3.4). When I joined Nicole, she was in the middle of working on the following problem: Gil loves toy cars. He saved enough...
by Karen Economopoulos | Feb 26, 2018 |
“One, two, three, four, five…” I was interested in how quickly Owen and Ravi figured out a way to count the set of 40 yellow hexagons in their Inventory Bag. The boys took turns saying a number as they placed the hexagons in a line which started to snake across the...
by Karen Economopoulos | Jan 22, 2018 |
“Wow, you’re so smart.” These words drew my attention to a pair of 5th grade girls in a class I was visiting, who I’ll call Cassie and Sophia. They were mid-way through a turn and talk, each sharing her strategy for solving 84 x 59. I casually moved closer, curious...
by Megan Murray | Jan 8, 2018 |
Imagine you are 6 years old. Or 7. You know you can use your fingers to model subtraction. For example, for a problem where there are 7 grapes and 2 get eaten, you can raise 7 fingers, put down 2, and count how many are left. But what do you do when the problem...
by Keith Cochran | Dec 11, 2017 |
On a recent visit to a school in a small city in the Midwest, Karen and I joined a class of 5th graders as they learned a game in Unit 3 called Roll Around the Clock. In the previous session, students used a clock to find and name fractions and equivalent fractions....
by Denise Treacy | Oct 30, 2017 |
Recently, I was chatting with a 7-year-old I know pretty well. I asked her about school, and she quickly started telling me about her current math work, complete with eye rolls and boredom. I decided to change the subject a little. “I know you like to tell me about...
