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Category: Grades K-2

Family Math Night – Posing Thinking Questions

Family Math Night – Posing Thinking Questions

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Our most recent Family Math Night event was done at an International Baccalaureate (IB) elementary school. The two teachers I was working with to organize the event wanted to find a way to include an inquiry-based question for students to answer. Their students have had a lot of practice with inquiry-based curriculm, which is a heavy component in the IB program, so it would have been a missed opportunity had we not tied IB in with math night. We decided…

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A Yummy Way to Practice Number Facts

A Yummy Way to Practice Number Facts

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How yummy is this activity! Oh yeah…and it’s a fun way to practice beginning number facts. I use the double six dominoes, but it’s easy to diferentiate by providing only dominoes that represent the facts you want students to work on. In other words, if you have a student who is still struggling with adding one to a given number, then use only the dominoes that have one dot (pip) on one side. For example, five dots on one side…

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Halloween Literature in the Math Classroom

Halloween Literature in the Math Classroom

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This book is TOO FUN! The illustrations alone are priceless. It’s a Halloween twist on the traditional The 12 Days of Christmas song. I always like to read the story first without too many interruptions. Although, be sure to have the students see if they can find the dog on each of the pages! They love that. Then we get into the math. With my younger students, we use Unifix cubes to determine the total number of gifts on day…

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A Twist on the Jigsaw Puzzle

A Twist on the Jigsaw Puzzle

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Jigsaw puzzles are great educational tools. Not only are they fun but they can help develop your child’s reasoning and problem-solving skills. And, of course, there’s nothing like the sense of satisfaction kids feel when they place that final piece into their puzzle. In addition to using commercial puzzles, it’s a lot of fun to have your child make her own jigsaw puzzle. Use one of her drawings or coloring books pages or even an enlarged photo and glue it…

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Adding Coins: How Much is Today Worth?

Adding Coins: How Much is Today Worth?

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Here’s a great way to give students practice adding coins. Use the date as their target number and then have them come up with all the different combinations using pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters. To turn this into a problem-solving activity, ask them to prove that they found all the combinations. A good way for students to learn how to organize their work is to have them use a table. At first, most kids fill in the table haphzardly which…

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