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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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Power Packs: Building Number Sense in Grades 4/5

Power Packs: Building Number Sense in Grades 4/5

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I’m excited to share with you that our Building Number Sense in Grades 4-5 Power Pack is now available. All of our Power Packs are filled with games that teach parents strategies and tools to help their children build strong math skills.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, there have been a lot of changes in mathematics curriculum and pedagogy in recent years and a lot of parents don’t feel as prepared as they’d like to be when it comes to helping their child in math. The power of these Power Packs comes in the integration of strategies and tools that parents use as they play the games with their children. While playing the games, not only are parents learning about the new standards, they’re also gaining strategies they can use to help their child in math.

The strategies and tools in our 4/5 Power Pack are:

  • Partial Products Multiplication
  • Partial Quotients Division
  • Distributive Property for single- and multi-digit multiplication
  • Front End Estimation
  • Fraction Bars
  • Multiplying Fractions on a Number Line
  • Rounding
  • Order of Operations
  • Standard Algorithms for addition, subtraction, multiplication, division
  • Multiplication Strategies for Multiples of 10

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Power Packs: Developing Number Sense

Power Packs: Developing Number Sense

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I’m excited to share with you the newest member of our Family Math Night product line:  Power Packs: Building Numbers Sense in grades K-1, 2-3, and 4-5.  These Power Packs are filled with games that teach parents strategies and tools to help their children build strong math skills.  They can be used during your Family Math Night event, as take-home math packs in the classroom, and as classroom math centers. Why Power Packs?  There have been a lot of changes in mathematics curriculum…

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New Family Math Night Collaborative Projects: Fish Bowl and Fraction Quilt

New Family Math Night Collaborative Projects: Fish Bowl and Fraction Quilt

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In addition to using the 8 stations in our Family Math Night kits, I usually include a ninth station where I set up a Collaborative Project.  I did the soccer ball project at my first event this year but then created two brand new ones that I’m excited to share with you:  Fraction Quilt and Fish Bowl. In Fraction Quilt, participants cut different colored squares into triangles and use those triangles to design their quilt square. Some of the math they’ll discover along the…

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Family Math Night What Do You Notice? Posters

Family Math Night What Do You Notice? Posters

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Last night I held my first Family Math Night event.  It was fabulous.  I had 31 student Station Facilitators – the most ever.  And every one of them did an amazing job.  Here’s a photo of them right before we opened the doors.  Can you find the principal in there? But what I really want to share with you are my upcoming What Do You Notice? posters.  You get to see them before anyone else.  Except for the first one…

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