On Your Marks. Get Set. Number Talks

Estimation, Fact Fluency, Strategy Development, Teacher Content

I’ll start off by saying that I’m definitely not a Number Talks guru and over the past 4 years I’ve learned just enough to be dangerous!  The first day of school is less than 12 days away and my summer is over!  Thankfully I’ve had the...

Flashcards: Weapons of Math Distraction

Cheese Mover, Fact Fluency, Teaching in a Context

What did SMP #1 say to the flash card? ……”You suck!” We’ve been using a math reasoning inventory as our benchmark assessment for the past 5 years.  In that time there’s been tremendous growth (in small pockets), but...

Visual Patterns and Functions: How Input/Output Tables Belong in 1st Grade

Fact Fluency, Strategy Development

As part of the #MTBoS 3rd mission we needed to choose a collaborative website and I want to give a huge shout out to @fawnpnguyen and http://www.visualpatterns.org/.  I have used her website in the past for developing k-2 lessons and if you haven’t visited to...

Underestimating Estimation

Estimation, Fact Fluency

Have you ever tried to teach a 3-yr-old how to ride a tricycle?   Now take that same thought, with  the same 3-yr-old but the tricycle has only one wheel! Crazy right?!?!  This is how I expected my students to become computationally fluent in my early years of...

What The Fluency?!?!? Time to stop the debate

Fact Fluency

After reading Dr. Boaler’s post on timed tests and math anxiety http://joboaler.com/timed-tests-and-the-development-of-math-anxiety/, I can’t help but think about the amount of harm we are causing. To automatize? Or to memorize?  That is the question!  But should...