Making Meaning with Arrays: More Preschooler Division

20 Mar 202020 Mar 2020

While my 2 year old napped, my 4 year old and I baked some chocolate chip muffins. "You know, mama, there are 4 people in all," she announced, while swirling…

Everyone Gets A Handful: Preschoolers Explore Division

28 Jan 20205 Feb 2022

One bag of cheese puffs. Four hungry children. My two children -- ages 4 and 2 -- had been playing with friends -- ages 4 and 8 -- when my…

Building Mental Representations

25 Nov 201917 Nov 2019

"Sabrina is fascinating. She will look at a problem for three minutes, not appearing to be thinking about it at all, and then come up with the correct answer," her…

What does it mean to be “struggling” in math class? (Eduardo’s Story)

5 Feb 20195 Feb 2019

It was a sea of dots. Eduardo's work for 47 + 27 Over and over again, for both computational and story problems, third grade student Eduardo drew dots. Eduardo's work,…

Presuming Competence: Using Clinical Interviews to Support Classroom Instruction

13 Nov 201827 Nov 2018

"She's not on an IEP, but she's struggling in class. What should I do?" I don't know the student -- Alejandra, or Ali, for short -- very well, so I arranged…

The New Kid

16 Oct 201712 Feb 2022

In a nutshell: my district offers a fellowship grant each year for six teachers to spend a (paid) week writing about teaching over the summer. I am never fully certain…

Breaking the “100 Barrier” with Jamal

10 Mar 201727 Nov 2018

“98, 99…” Second grader Jamal and I had worked for a full month -- one-on-one, four days per week -- to develop his sequencing skills and mental number line. Every time we made it…

Counting to 10 in Danish: Learning from Students, Colleagues + the #MTBoS

23 Jan 201727 Nov 2018

I started this post yesterday, and then read a blog post by Kyle Pearce that filled in some of the gaps in my own thinking. Once again, I feel indebted…

Response to Michael Pershan’s Essay, Part 2

13 Jan 201723 Feb 2017

Read Michael's essay, "Missing Factors: On Learning What You Don't Know." Read Part 1: Counting with Celine, about a student I worked with for five years. It was bittersweet to…

Counting with Celine / Response to Michael Pershan’s Essay, part 1

13 Jan 201723 Feb 2017

I read Michael Pershan’s essay, "Missing Factors: On Learning What You Don't Know," twice. He described a familiar experience: when students seem stuck with operational fluency, in spite of our…