I used to think that I was meeting students’ needs by putting them in different groups during math class. The “high” students would be in one group. They got to do the problem-solving tasks because...

I was at a math workshop one summer and the facilitator showed us a number line and asked us where one million would go. At first, I was stumped. My initial instinct was to place...

What does it mean to measure something? What decisions do we have to make when we measure something in the real world? The following questions and decisions are ones that we want children to ask...

There’s something intriguing about guessing games. The mystery of not knowing the answer and having to use clues to figure it out has always been something that motivates children. All I have to do is...

When I first started using Number Talks in the classroom, I would randomly choose problems for students to solve. I would ask them to think of different strategies for solving the problem, discuss with a...

Dice have been around for a long time. In fact, dice are the oldest gaming implements known to humankind. There are various claims for who actually invented dice. For example, Sophocles said that dice were...

Using Poetry to Explore Math My current favorite book to teach math is Ten Times Better by Richard Michelson (Marshall Cavendish, 2000). This book of poems stars an interesting cast of animals who use poetry...

A Conversation with Kathy Seckington, Poway Teacher Why is listening an important habit in math class? I recently posed this question to my friend and colleague Kathy Seckington. Kathy is currently teaching fifth grade in...

One of my current favorite online math resources is the Talking Math Slide Deck from Illustrative Math IM Talking Math. For teachers who are teaching virtually or face-to-face, this resource makes for a perfect math...

Using Children’s Literature to Teach Number Sense One of my favorite books that help children think about reasonableness and number magnitude is A Million Fish…More or Less by Patricia C. McKissack (Scholastic, 1992). McKissack is...