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Free Number Sense Boosters
Could your students’ number sense use a boost? These quick and simple activities improve number sense while engaging your students.
Latest from the Blog
The Math Spot Compares Fractions: Representative Models
We are heading into post #3 of my four-part fraction comparison series. If you haven’t read post #1 and post #2 take a quick break to go and read those now! Now that we are all caught up, let’s do a quick recap of the big ideas: Students have had
The Math Spot Compares Fractions- Comparison Tools
When I taught 4th grade special ed. I found that fractions in the context of a story made so much sense to my students. I would come up with elaborate scenarios – most involving food- that would start out by granting one student exclusive rights to an entire pan of
Comparing Fractions with Understanding (Instead of Tricks)
Comparing fractions <groan> you know that your students will come in with all sorts of “tricks” and misconceptions up their sleeves. But, never fear, because if you can predict it, you can prevent it. Instead of promoting tricks, we can “Think CRA” and build a solid foundation for fraction comparison
YouTube Counting Song Roundup
YouTube is such an excellent resource when it comes to songs and videos. There is an absolute wealth of options on the site especially when it comes to number and counting songs. Sometimes there are almost too many options and crawling through can be very time consuming. Lucky for you
How Will Subitizing Help My Students?
Subitizing can be one of those skills that we know our students need to have but we aren’t sure when or how to go about making this happen. I want to clear subitizing up for you and to give you some “I can implement this tomorrow” activities to use in
How I Make Meaning of the Addition Sign
In my math room there is one question, far and away, that I ask more often than any other. I’m not talking about a question or prompt such as “Could you show that to me in another way?” or “Why do you think that works?” those questions could be used
Adding and Subtracting Ten Mentally
For some first grade students, adding and subtracting ten to a given number comes naturally. They know that 23 has 2 tens and 3 ones so, naturally adding another ten gives the answer of 33! For other students, this skill isn’t so intuitive. You may have taught the skill using
Understanding the Count Sequence
Your kindergartners can count to 10, or 20 or even 100. But you ask them what number comes after 8 and your most struggling learners start counting back at one to figure it out. They know the count sequence but they don’t understand the count sequence. Understanding the count sequence
Double Ten Frames
Double ten frames are such a strong visual representation of teen numbers. The best part? It is a versatile tool as well! You can use the double ten frame to develop a deep understanding of teen number but also to build an understanding of the benchmarks of five and ten,
Comparison Conversations
Comparison is a notoriously difficult math topic to teach. The most important things to remember when introducing comparisons are to keep it concrete and emphasize comparison conversation. Students NEED to talk about math. A lot. It is one thing to be able to indicate which number or set of objects is more or fewer and
