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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
A video demonstrating how ten frames can be used to develop number sense was posted at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQxS5Z3UHKk&feature=player_embedded. (They disabled embedded on external sites, so you will have to click to see it.) The video shows progression from counting-on with touching, or the concrete stage, to the pictorial stage of being able to look at ten […]
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!)
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
A great article titled Waiting for Supermath came through my inbox today. It includes commentary on a video (below) of a third grader showing how she solves a four-digit addition problem using what she learns at school, or the Investigations curriculum, versus what her mother (a math intervention specialist) teaches at home, the traditional “stacking” […]