For my educator friends and colleagues, I have added a new multiplication chart lesson plan, complete with reproducible handouts, to TeachersPayTeachers.com. It is free to download and use. It can be used in a classroom, in a homeschooling setting, or in a special needs or remedial context. The lesson is aligned to the Common Core Standards and includes objectives, materials, and descriptions of procedures, follow-ups and adaptations. Please let me know if you find it useful, and if you do, please add a rating to the TeachersPayTeachers site. Download the lesson plan here.
Teachers in my math workshops like me to share some multiplication and factoring tips I teach my students. These help with number sense as well. I hope they can be useful for you too. Tips for Multiplying Whole Numbers Times 2: Double the number. If multiplying by 2, the result will always be even. Times 3: Triple the number. Products alternate odd and even (3, 6, 9, 12, etc.). Times 4: Double the number twice. The result will always be even. Times 5: The result must have a 5 or a 0 in the ones place. Times 6: Triple the…
On Friday, my young writers and I had a Thank Goodness It’s Over party to celebrate our accomplishments during the month. The TGIO party is a well-established tradition for any NaNoWriMo group. I have always used it to showcase and celebrate each individual child’s writing. We met at a family’s home, and each child had five minutes to read an excerpt from his or her story. I was impressed by the quality of the writing; three years of doing Nano for most of them has led to exceptional storytelling abilities in these young writers. During the reading part of the…
Today is Wednesday, December 1, and November is finally over. All of the students in my program, Your Greatest Writing Adventure Ever, achieved their goals of writing a story in the month. The word count goals ranged from 1,500 to 4,700 words, and their ages ranged from seven to ten. What an amazing accomplishment! Not only the writing, but the fun they had doing it. I am so proud of everyone, but I’m also relieved that NaNaWriMo is over. In fact, doing this program is such a mammoth accomplishment that it’s pretty much a requirement to have a TGIO (Thank…
The more I travel and meet people, the more I find that most adults in the US have difficulty with math. I read a comment by a woman from Eastern Europe who found that while she was a mediocre math student in her home country, she was miles ahead of American students when she moved here. She couldn’t understand why, with all the time and finance poured into math education here, including an average of 1.5 hours per day of math class, her children were progressing in math far less well than she had when growing up. I think part…
I was at the Westchester County Airport this morning, in the women’s room, when a woman and I started a conversation over soap. The topic soon changed to bathroom decor, which we discussed for a few minutes before wishing each other well. Then the woman walked out, and I was able to see her gait. It was quite lopsided, and she walked with the aid of a cane. I had noticed that she had mostly been using one side of her face to talk, but now I could see the extent of the asymmetry of her body. After seeing this,…
Yesterday was the first day of NaNoWriMo, and it began with a bang. My group has seven bright, eager children in it, and we all dove in to our writing projects yesterday. Prior to that, we had a couple of meetings in which we worked on character development, understanding what plot is, setting expectations, and deciding on word count goals. I think my students from previous years underestimated their abilities yet again, if yesterday was any measure; they seem to grow their ability to write fluently almost exponentially each year. I’m impressed. Even more impressive, one of our new members,…
About two weeks ago, a post titled “Singapore Math Is ‘Our Dirty Little Secret’” appeared on the Core Knowledge blog. It criticized the New York Times article about Singapore Math that appeared on October 1. Apparently, the author believes that the poor state of math education in the US is due to what he calls “reform math.” This ignores an entire generation of math-phobic adults who learned math through “traditional” methods, and most likely instigated the reform movement due to their dissatisfaction with those methods. While the curricula based purely on constructivist approaches have their limitations, the idea that Singapore…
My first trip to NCTM is over, and I’m glad I went. Although the setup had a few glitches, like an LCD projector that didn’t want to project from my laptop, my presentation on problem solving using model drawing went well, with close to 180 participants. Many of them came back to the booth, interested in further learning, and some bought books and materials or inquired about future opportunities to develop this skill. I’m really pleased about this, because it means more children may be better equipped to enjoy and understand math. The booth was busy the whole day, and…
After a long day of arriving and helping to set up the SDE booth, I had a little time to look around the NCTM bookstore. (NCTM, in case you don’t know, is the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics and the host of this conference.) There were some interesting books, but the one I just HAD to buy was Math Jokes 4 Mathy Folks by G. Patrick Vennebush. How could I resist? It shows what a math geek I am that I was laughing out loud while reading some of the jokes. This will be a great resource for any…