Karyn's Blog

Easy Strategies to Get Students to Understand Fractions: Multiplying, Dividing, Simplifying, Equivalence

July 25, 2012 Karyn Comments 0 Comment

Fractions, or parts of a whole, have often been difficult for students to understand. This is often the result of rhymes such as “Mine is not to reason why, just invert and multiply”. But when we teach fractions this way, math become a set of mysterious rules and procedures that need to be memorized. But if we can show students why operations on fractions work the way they do, we take out the mystery of math. Then math begins to…

Learn Number Facts on the Refridgerator

July 18, 2012 Karyn Comments 0 Comment

Here’s a super easy and fun activity to have your kindergartner or First grader practice while you are busy cooking dinner. You just need some round magnets (these are colored, but plain work, as well), a large paper cut out domino, and sample smaller dominoes. Just type’ dominoes’ into your browser to get samples you can cut out. Tape the large and small dominoes to the fridge. Then let your child use the magnets to create their own dominoes. They’ll…

Sticker Addition

May 28, 2012 Karyn Comments 0 Comment

Why not empower kids to create their own addition problems to solve? They love it! Here’s an activity I do with kindergartners and first graders. An easy way to adapt the lesson for beginning of the school year kindergartners is to have them simply place stickers (less than 10) and write the total.

Multiplication of Fractions. What Does it Mean?

May 24, 2012 Karyn Comments 0 Comment

So that’s what it means to multiply fractions! Visual representations make all the difference! I acutally have students first do this using a geoboard. Then we transfer to grid paper (see above photo). After collecting a number of samples, students look for patterns and discover that multiplying across gives them the same answer. But now it makes sense! CCSS: 5.NF.4; 5.NF.5

Using Number Sense to Solve Problems

May 19, 2012 Karyn Comments 0 Comment

Kids who have a strong number sense can compose and decompose numbers, make reasonable estimates, and use numbers in flexible ways. Here’s a great example. (Aligns to the Common Core State Standards in Mathematics: Mathematical Practices – Look for and make use of structures.)