I’m so inspired about a new tool to enhance math education. A friend sent me the link to a TED talk (embedded at the bottom of this post) showing the evolution of the Khan Academy into something truly useful for – well, for just about anybody. I had come across the Khan videos some time ago, and I thought they were useful and well designed to teach more advanced concepts. Since they were not necessarily pertinent to my work, though, I didn’t return to them. Then I saw this video, and how the Khan Academy has evolved, and I got…
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And now for something completely different! When I am not exploring math education or writing fiction, I love to make things. This includes everything from cooking to needle felting to making jewelry. So when instructables.com opened their Pi Day pie contest, I had to enter. Creating my entry required a great deal of calculation, from halving or quartering recipes to guesstimating how long it would take to bake this unique cookie, cake, and ice cream pie. Fortunately, I’ve had lots of experience with estimation, and I couldn’t have hoped for this pie to turn out better. My friends who shared…
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Yesterday was March 14, or 3/14, or Pi Day. It’s a great day to celebrate the circle, and that most extraordinary number, pi. With my second grade math club, I did several activities on my new teacher download, Pi Day Activities. These included cutting a circle, measuring a circle, and eating pie. We didn’t have enough time to play Pi Tag, though I’m sure we’ll be doing that one week soon! I also created a poster showing almost 1,500 digits of pie. You can download it for free either from my site or from my TeachersPayTeachers.com link. Happy Pi Day!
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I recently watched a video of a teacher helping a student master tens and ones using ten frames and unifix cubes. While the video showed some of the ways Singapore Math teaches number sense well, a few things about the teaching style struck me. These are pertinent to tutoring because it was a one-on-one situation. One thing that stood out was that the teacher sometimes gave the answer to the student before the student had a chance to think. This is a mistake that is so easy to make; the tutor knows the answer, and the child doesn’t, so why not tell…
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A Delaware school district has successfully implemented Singapore Math, raising enjoyment, understanding, and test scores. This article describes their success. Here is one example: Mount Pleasant Elementary Principal Joyce Skrobot did not need to be convinced to add Singapore math to the curriculum. Her school piloted the program over the past four years in some second-grade classes, and, on state tests, they outperformed the classes that did not use the math, she said. “It really establishes a strong foundation of math skills with a lot of repetition,” she said. “It’s a very concrete approach to teaching.” The district plans to…
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Here is an excellent video demonstrating how ten frames can be used to develop number sense. The video shows progression from counting-on with touching, or the concrete stage, to the pictorial stage of being able to look at ten frames and see how many dots are present. Early in the video, it says the child is a kinesthetic learner, which may be true, but touching the objects is a natural early stage for anyone. So touching the objects doesn’t necessarily mean the child is a kinesthetic learner, but they may be at the concrete stage of learning a certain concept.…
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If you’re going to tell triangle jokes, you should do them in threes, right? So here’s the third one, also original: Q: Which triangles are the best conversationalists? A: The acute ones. The others are either too obtuse or always right. (That one got a laugh today!)
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I came across this joke tonight in a blog comment. Q: What did the triangle say to the circle? A: Your life seems so pointless. And a bonus original joke that I just made up: Q: Which triangles are the most likely to get the point? A: The acute ones. The others ones are just too obtuse. Let me know if you thought it was funny!
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In August 2010, Achieve.org produced a report comparing the Common Core State Standards with the Singapore Math syllabus. I found the report interesting, as it showed that there are many similarities between these standards and Singapore’s syllabus, though in some ways, the CCSS document is clearer in its expectations. Also, Singapore uses the British system of O-level and A-level achievement. Their O-level high school curriculum is slightly less rigorous than ours, but their A-level curriculum is more rigorous than our standard high school curriculum. I drew the conclusion from reading the report that adopting Singapore Math could be a positive…
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One of my favorite humor bloggers is Allie Brosh, author of Hyperbole and a Half. I’ve been catching up on reading her posts lately, and this one caught my eye tonight: Hyperbole and a Half: Long Division Isn't Real. (If you visit the link, just be forewarned that she uses the f-word once in her post.) This is how she describes her mom’s attempt to teach her long division in fourth grade, the year Allie was homeschooled. (Her actual post contains an awesome drawing about it too, so visit it if you can): My mom was like “First, you draw…