Why is learning to use related facts and number relationships to solve single-digit problems so important? The short answer is it helps children develop necessary knowledge for mental math down the road. Thanks to Nelly Boyd from Counting With Kids ...
What is the key to reducing math test anxiety? At Stress Free Math For Kids, our mission is to eliminate math anxiety in kids, parents, teachers, and tutors. However, we know that state tests can bring out the worst of ...
Learn Math Fast is a series of books I recently discovered through a discussion in a Right Start Math discussion group. While Right Start Math is an amazing homeschool curriculum for elementary and middle school students, the question was asked ...
Math Fact Lab is my absolute favorite website for fact practice. I love it for three main reasons: it is strategy based and uses a variety of visual representations it teaches division facts right alongside the related multiplication facts and ...
Have you ever wished there was an Orton Gillingham for math? Looking for Math Therapy but unable to find an in person tutor? Made For Math is a company that provides specialized multisensory math instruction through live online tutoring for ...
It’s kind of funny to me that I have had this site for over 4 years without ever writing a post about my math mantras. Recently a child said to me “You say that a lot” when I said “Math ...
Most of my resources on this site are for parents and teachers/tutors of elementary age kids, but we all know that building a strong foundation in math starts earlier! I was very excited to connect with Andrea Gibbs, a blog ...
What is math therapy? I first heard the term from Kirk of Kirk’s Tutoring. Kirk began his multisensory math tutoring business after leaving the classroom to homeschool his sons. We started talking on Instagram one day after realizing we had ...
Why do kids hate math? I have said for a long time that no kids actually hate math, but many kids think they do. It is my job to show them that they don’t actually hate math, they just hate ...
Image from dyslexiachampion.com Gifted kids can be dyslexic too! In the Facebook group Parents of Gifted and High Ability Children, a mom asked, “Anyone here have a gifted + ADHD+dyslexia kid? Is this even possible?” Not only is it possible, ...
Welcome to a look at how I go about tutoring multiplication and division! One of the things I love about working with kids outside of the public school system is being able to teach interrelated concepts together without worrying about ...
Helping Your Perfectionistic Child in Math Quora user Chris Thompson asks “Is math the pursuit of absolute perfection? You might say that. Or you might say that it is a pursuit of absolutes.” Meanwhile, one of my favorite mathematically gifted ...
Do you need strategies for helping your perfectionistic child? This post is a condensed version of an entire book I have written on this topic! If you find the content helpful, please get the full book in paperback or Kindle ...
What is the area model for multiplication and why do schools now teach it before introducing the standard algorithm? This (and other similar questions) is one of the most common questions parents ask about “common core” or “new” math. The ...
What are number strings and how can they be used in your math instruction? Number strings are a series of related math problems strategically designed to help students construct strategies. They work together with math talks. While the goal of ...
I mentioned in a previous post that I had three favorite sessions when I attended the Conference for the Advancement of Math Teaching this summer. Two were sessions I went in to the conference excited about (Kim Sutton of Creative ...
Math literacy using technology encourages student creativity and application of learning. I recently attended the Texas Computer Education Association’s technology education conference. While attending a session on student created literacy stations, I began to realize how many of the suggestions ...
Here are my favorite math picture books for teaching about money. For my other book lists see: Math Picture Books: Place Value & Operations Math Picture Books: Geometry & Measurement Picture Books About Mathematicians Concept and History of Money One ...
Here are a few of my favorite math picture books / readalouds for place value, numbers, & operations. Most of my posts on teaching specific topics include relevant books but some teachers/parents have asked for recommended books to be listed ...
The Absolute Zero card game is a good quick game for middle school students to practice adding positive and negative integers. Game play is very simple. There is a deck of number cards, with both positive (black) and negative (red) ...
One of the students I currently tutor individually needed help last week with decimal place value and money. We worked on the decimal place value using my ideas in this post (Place Value Yahtzee was a big hit!) However when ...
If you are looking for intervention help in teaching addition facts, I highly recommend Addition Facts That Stick. While I have developed a lot of strategies for multiplication fact fluency , I haven’t seen as many for addition fluency. However, ...
Mean, median, mode are often terms students (and adults) get confused. With the following engaging and memorable activities, you can have students using and understanding these important math vocabulary words. For general ideas for teaching math vocabulary see this post. ...
My biggest request on this site recently has been resources for math distance learning. My most popular post for months has been Math Games to Play On Zoom. I haven’t put up more specifically on this topic (though most of ...
Introducing Rounding One of my favorite and most effective lessons I ever taught was when I came up with a spontaneous activity for teaching rounding for understanding to a group of third graders. We used the life size number line, ...
One of my favorite math camp, math club, or enrichment topics for kids is exploring infinity, fractals, and tessellations. These topics aren’t part of the typical elementary and middle school math curriculum, but they build a deeper understanding of the ...
Here are my current favorite virtual math field trips for all grades preK-12. Whether you teach (or parent) elementary, middle school or high school students, here are some ways to make math come alive. The National Museum of Mathematics National ...
Looking for math games to play on Zoom (or Google Hangouts?) Here are some of my favorites for elementary and middle school students. For more on distance learning please see my posts Math Distance Learning and Virtual Math Field Trips ...
Proof is a simple and effective card game for developing mathematical thinking. It builds mental math skills, number sense, and fluency. You can use it to practice multiplication, division, addition, subtraction, and square roots. It can easily be very appropriate ...
One of the keys to increasing kids’ confidence and interest in math is helping them to see that math isn’t an isolated “school subject,” but something they already use every day. One of my lines in introducing division is “if ...
One of the most common problems I see in intervention with elementary math students is a lack of understanding of multi digit subtraction with regrouping. Traditionally students were taught the standard algorithm by memorizing steps, which they would often forget. ...
In my previous posts Teaching Fractions and Fractions On the Number Line I have discussed the statistics of how poorly most students understand fractions, and some of the ways we can teach for better understanding. In this post I want ...
My claim as a math teacher has been that I can find a way for any child to love math. Games, art projects, STEM– there is always some way a child already uses math for fun. However, I met a ...
If your students have a solid understanding of whole number place value being based on patterns of tens, and an understanding of fractions, learning decimal place value should be a natural progression. This post will mostly be on introducing decimals ...
In my previous articles I have written about The Importance of Place Value, how it is the foundation for all math, and specifically about resources, strategies and methods for teaching Beginning Place Value, working with ones and tens to one ...
As I wrote on the page “The Importance Of Place Value,” there is no concept more important in elementary math than that math is all about patterns, and the pattern we use for building all numbers is based on tens. ...
Tessellation artist Makoto Nakamura has made several versions of these perpetual puzzles that are great for an independent student activity. They would be perfect for early finishers in a classroom, for a warm up to a small group or individual tutoring ...
Our overall goal in math is for students to be able to apply their mathematical skills to solve real world problems. In order to do that, one of the most important things they must have is a strong knowledge of ...
As a math teacher I had never given any thought to the concept of teaching digital root until I ran across Kim Sutton’s book Power of Digital Root: 10 Lessons For Understanding. Kim Sutton, if you are not familiar, runs ...
Math read alouds: geometry and measurement is a list of recommended picture books. Reading math literature is beneficial in many ways. These books can introduce new concepts, interest students and engage them in thinking about their learning. They encourage mathematical ...
In this post I want to give an example from an actual tutoring session of how hands on discovery learning works with an individual student. In particular, this is how a student developed his own understanding of finding volume by ...
Math picture books teach geometry & measurement in a fun, engaging and memorable way. They can introduce new concepts, interest students and engage them in thinking about their learning. They encourage mathematical discussion. And of course it is always great ...
This book, which I ran across at the library, absolutely took me by surprise with the incredible quality of math activities for gifted/talented elementary and middle school students. Several of my GT students’ favorite activities we had already done were ...
Ever hear a teacher tell a child “addition makes numbers bigger and subtraction makes them smaller?” How about, “Put the bigger number on the top when you subtract?” I recently read an article called “12 Math Rules That Expire in ...
One of my first lessons when teaching or tutoring a gifted/talented child or group of any age/grade in math is always the history of the number system and a comparison of number systems. They are almost always fascinated and it ...
The resources in this post will cover: introducing and developing understanding of the relationship between improper fractions and mixed numbers, the 4th grade standard of adding and subtracting mixed numbers with like denominators, the 5th grade standards of adding and ...
Money Bags is a board game from Learning Resources designed for kids to practice counting and exchanging coins. It is a relatively quick game to play, probably 10-15 minutes. The game is ideal for first/second graders (or older children struggling ...
Remember making angles with cardstock and brads to teach acute, obtuse and right angles? I did it with students just last year. Then I learned about AngLegs, adjustable angle manipulatives made from colored plastic that can snap together, extend and ...
Teaching volume of rectangular prisms typically begins in 5th grade, then extends in 6th to prisms with fractional edge lengths. I have included activities and lessons at both levels. All activities and printables listed are free except for the one ...
This is a game variation I came up with spontaneously recently. I was at Half Price Books and saw this very cool set of Texas themed Uno cards that I just had to buy. We Texans love our state! Texas ...
While there are many commercial math games that are worth buying, there are also quite a few good math card games you can play with a deck of standard playing cards. Here are some of my favorites for different concepts. ...
How Stuff Works has a fantastic article called Why Do We Get So Much Pleasure From Symmetry? As it says, “Most objects in the real world are symmetrical. This is particularly true of nature: the radial symmetry of starfish or ...
We’ve all been there as a parent or teacher, when we have an unexpected 5 minutes to fill. We need a spontaneous no prep activity to keep kids engaged and also hopefully build their skills. Here are some 5 minute ...
Geometry is one of my favorite things to teach in elementary. I always begin by teaching the kids how “geo” means earth and “metry” means to measure, so we are literally learning how to measure the earth! In this post ...
Are you looking for enriching independent math activities for your gifted students, math loving kids, and/or early finishers? I have added enrichment options and projects to most of my posts in the How To Teach Key Math Concepts section. Here ...
If you are looking for a way for students to understand the importance of number sequences and patterning in the real world, the Fibonacci sequence is a natural way to accomplish this. While gifted and talented students can dive into ...
What are numberless word problems and why are they useful? If I had to identify one consistent area of concern for parents seeking help for their children, it would definitely be word problems. While sometimes it is an issue of ...
This has always been one of my favorite cartoons. As I wrote in my first article, it is really sad to me when very young kids have already got it in their heads that they are “bad at math.” Part ...