~Kathleen Jalalpour Last Friday, I attended a virtual conference held by the British Columbia Association of Math Teachers. The keynote speaker, Michael Pruner, challenged us as math teachers to slow down. To do so, he admitted, would require us to focus less on testing and more on how children actually learn. Although admittedly disruptive to

Kathleen and Corrinne are pleased to announce the launch of their new website. You can follow us there on a day-by-day basis – a whole year’s worth of daily lesson plans. We have currently loaded lessons through September, and promise to stay at least a month ahead of the calendar. Stay tuned! If you use

Long division is perhaps as difficult for a 4th or 5th grader as Calculus is for a high school senior. The multiple steps are so complex that they need to be drilled until they often lose all meaning for a child. Cute mnemonics and hours of drill might result in a procedural competency for many

“Making Sense of Word Problems”. Feel free to use or edit as you like. CMC-WP

  1. Two More Fun Warm-ups Reviewing Word Problems We have seen our 8th graders struggle with algebra problems that involve “the number of bills” and the “value of those bills”. They can write x + y = 27 if there are 27 five and 10 dollar bills altogether, but stumble over the value equation: 

REVIEWING MADE FUN! We found on our second quiz that many students were still struggling with word problems.  (Correct student quiz answers here.)  So we adapted some of  Steve Wyborney’s “Esti-mysteries”  to continue reviewing word problems, and students seem to enjoy these ‘mysteries’ and look forward to them. Try these engaging warm-ups: Important:  Take TIME

We found Lego-type blocks at the Dollar Shop!

Word Problems – YAY! Our intensive use of Cuisenaire rods came to fruition now as we attempt to transfer fraction visualization to word problems. Here are the 2 lessons we spent on this so far: CW Frac to WP1  and  CW Frac to WP2 We used a format called “Builders and Scribes”.

According to this article by Jo Boaler — professor of mathematics education at Stanford and co-founder of http://www.youcubed.org  — math memorizers scored poorly on the international PISA test, and the U.S. has more memorizers than most other countries in the world. The highest achieving students internationally were those who thought of math as a set

First of all, we’re glad we did this new unit. It uses Cuisenaire rods extensively. However, it was hard! There were pitfalls and things we would do differently next time, but aren’t there always? So, here goes.