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Category: Number and Operations

Homework the FUN Way

Homework the FUN Way

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Everyone loves to play games. They’re engaging, motivating, and fun. And from an educational perspective, they can be a powerful learning tool. Here’s what games can do:

  • reinforce skills learned in the classroom
  • develop mental math skills
  • encourage strategic thinking
  • foster mathematical communication
  • build confidence
  • engage parents

But one of the best things about games is that they offer meaningful practice in a way where kids actually want to do math. That’s because games, by their very nature, are fun. It’s not too hard to entice a child to play a game. And because of that, games offer important practice in a way that worksheets can’t.

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What Do You Notice? poster – Number Grid Puzzle

What Do You Notice? poster – Number Grid Puzzle

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Skills:
K-2: number recognition, pattern
3-5: pattern, addition

My youngest son visited the Basilica Sagrada Familia, a Roman Catholic Church in Barcelona, Spain and brought this pattern back for me as a gift. Here’s a photo of his gift: (And before you read the next paragraph where I describe the main pattern, you may want to discover your own patterns first.)

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The Estimation Jars

The Estimation Jars

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This year I decided to add the 0-120 number grids to my K-2 estimation jar. The number grids come from our Math Medley kits and kids can use dry eraser markers to “think” as they’re working out their estimation. Of course, there’s the thinking paper and the referents, as well.

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What Do You Notice? Descriptions

What Do You Notice? Descriptions

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What Do You Notice? Rectangular Arrays

Skills:
Primary students (K-2): shapes, counting, repeated addition, area
Intermediate students (3-5): classifying quadrilaterals, area model of multiplication, multiplication, prime, composite, and square numbers

It’s been on my TO DO list for a long time. Years, in fact. But I’ve finally checked it off and I’m thrilled with the results.

As many of you know, for each of my Family Math Night events I include a What Do You Notice? poster. These posters are designed to get kids and parents thinking about math on a deeper level. Although each poster has been included on our website, there has never been details…until now. I’ve taken each of the posters and written a thorough description of the math involved. I’ve also included the specific skills by grade span, K-2 and 3-5, and given several examples of student responses.

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The Power of the Estimation Jar

The Power of the Estimation Jar

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We often think of math as the exact-answer subject. But the kind of math that we do most often during the day doesn’t require an exact answer. We use this particular math skill when we need to figure out how much time we need to get ready in the morning. Or whether we have enough gas in the car to get to work. Or whether $50 is enough to cover the items in our shopping cart.

The math skill we use the most is, of course, estimation. And estimating accurately requires a high level of math. That’s because it’s abstract which means we need to tap into our number sense and reasoning skills.

One way to provide our students with opportunities to work on their estimation skills is during computation practice. Instead of diving right in to figure out 15 x 12, have students come up with an estimate…about what the answer will be. In fact, periodically I ask students NOT to determine the exact answer and, instead, have them turn in their work with only their estimates recorded. This is hard for them to do in the beginning because they are so used to working out arithmetic problems, but they soon learn the value in thinking about the problem first.

A fun way to get students to work on their estimating skills is through the estimation jar. I’ve included two of my estimation videos below. The first video describes using the estimation jar in the classroom as a way to develop, not only estimation skills, but place value and number sense, as well.

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