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Embrace the Challenge

The Blog of a K-8 Math Specialist

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Tag: grade 1

in the classroom

“It’s as fat as it is tall”: Language and Concept Development with Quick Images

7 Mar 2023
Some days, things just go sideways. It's the reality of teaching. I watched as Grade 1 teacher Rachel led her students into the classroom fifteen minutes later than usual. Rachel…
curriculum…

Preserving Equality — Algebraic Thinking Across Grade Levels

13 Feb 202313 Feb 2023
Equality is a fundamental concept of mathematics. The way that we can play around with values -- adjusting numbers slightly -- but maintain equality is fascinating, and differs between operations.…
in the classroom

Peas and Carrots… and Beans

9 Feb 20238 Feb 2023
Last year, our first grade team had the opportunity to work with Investigations authors from TERC -- the inimitable Karen Economopolous, with Megan Murray in absentia. To prepare for our…
games…

Facilitating Number Boxes, Part 2 – Supporting Reasoning with Representations (Learning With Students)

15 Dec 20223 Feb 2023
"Hmm.. 8 + 3. Let's put the 8 in the ten frame. If we add 3, will it be more than, less than, more equal to 10?" Kyleigh missed parts…
curriculum…

“What Are You Hoping For?”: Facilitating the Number Boxes Game to Develop Reasoning – Learning with Teachers

8 Dec 20223 Feb 2023
Number Boxes is one of my favorite games to play. The set up looks similar to an Open Middle problem, with empty boxes that you will place digits into. Open…
Uncategorized

How Many Birds: Mathematizing “Two Many Birds” In First Grade, Part 2

28 Apr 202227 Apr 2022
I have been reading Allison Hintz and Antony Smith’s Mathematizing Children’s Literature (Stenhouse, 2022), and it has disrupted how I think about the use of children's literature in math class. In my…
in the classroom

The Bossy Owl: Mathematizing “Two Many Birds” in First Grade, Part 1

27 Apr 202227 Apr 2022
In my last blog post, I described three ways in which Allison Hintz and Antony Smith’s Mathematizing Children’s Literature (Stenhouse, 2022) has disrupted how I think about the use of children's literature…
five practices…

Stenhouse Blog Post: Using Student Work as an Anchor for Mathematical Discourse (Something to Talk About)

11 Jan 20221 Jan 2022
This blog post was published on the blog for Stenhouse Publishing, as part of a series on classroom discourse. You can read the complete post on the Stenhouse website. While…
in the classroom

More Peas, More Carrots: Student Agency in Representations While Problem Solving

16 Dec 2021
Today, the first graders revisited "Peas and Carrots." They had spent several days exploring part-part-whole thinking in the context of games like "how many are hiding?" and "counters in a…
in the classroom

The Half-Triangle: Attending to Precision and Building On Others’ Ideas

12 Dec 202111 Dec 2021
From Investigations: Grade 4, Unit 4, Investigation 2, Lesson 2 "This shape fits my rule," said 4th grade teacher Ms. Cohen, moving the green right triangle to the left side…
in the classroom

“Never Say Anything a Kid Can Say”: Peas and Carrots Edition

10 Dec 2021
Yesterday was an exciting day in first grade: the launch of peas & carrots! This is the first "how many of each?" problem in first grade. Students wrestle with two…
in the classroom…

Digging in the Closet: The Return of the Museum of Rarely Used Math Manipulatives (MoRUMM)

18 Nov 202112 Dec 2021
My officemate and I have an embarrassment of riches -- in the form of math materials. In the first district where I taught, manipulatives were hard to come by. My…
curriculum…

Making Space to Listen and Observe

29 Sep 2021
My school recently adopted TERC's Investigations in Number, Time, and Space. The cornerstone of this curriculum is listening to, centering, amplifying, and leveraging student ideas. Many of the embedded assessments…
assessment…

Choosing a Story to Tell: Examining a Lesson Close in 1st Grade

28 Aug 20196 Feb 2022
I had planned to spend my first time in Room 12 observing the classroom teacher and getting to know her students. Instead, the teacher texted me the day before to…
assessment…

Students Surprise Us: Interviews with Juliet

20 Jun 201919 Jun 2019
Have you ever had a student just gloriously prove all your assumptions wrong? Things move so quickly in a school. In order to grapple with the pace of our days,…
games

One of Favorite Games: The Skip Count Game

30 May 20198 Feb 2023
This game is part of my "simple but high leverage" collection of games that are flexible, engaging, and easy to prep. Others include Number Boxes and the Answer Is... I've played the…
games…

One of My Favorite Games: Number Boxes

29 May 20193 Feb 2023
This game is part of my "simple but high leverage" collection of games that are flexible, engaging, and easy to prep. Others include The Answer Is... and the Skip Count Game. I…
games

One of My Favorite Games: The Answer Is…

28 May 20196 Jun 2019
This game is part of my "simple but high leverage" collection of games that are flexible, engaging, and easy to prep. Others include Number Boxes and the Skip Count Game. I have…
in the classroom

Daysha at the Board: Assigning Competence

2 Mar 20195 Feb 2022
"Sit down, Daysha... Daysha." Six-year-old Daysha shot me an icy glare while she leisurely pumped hand sanitizer onto her open palm. The rest of her class was all sitting on…
in the classroom

Making Connections during Number Talks

28 Mar 2017
All hands shoot up in 1M, a first grade classroom. The students strain their arms, employing arched eyebrows and pursed lips to entreat me to call on them. Of course, once I…

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Recent Posts

  • Seeing the World through One Kindergartner’s Eyes 18 May 2023
  • Fractions in Fractions: Sparking Creative Mathematical Thinking 9 May 2023
  • “Teachable Moments,” and a Tale of Two Detours 27 Apr 2023
  • The Case of the Impossible Triangles 3 Apr 2023
  • Bugs Jump Really High #tmwyk 1 Apr 2023
  • How We Listen: Astrid’s Thinking about 5 x 6 27 Mar 2023
  • Ramadan Pizzas: Mathematizing Children’s Literature #tmwyk 22 Mar 2023
  • “It’s as fat as it is tall”: Language and Concept Development with Quick Images 7 Mar 2023
  • Listening to Understand: Visualizing Adrian’s Thinking about Comparing Fractions 26 Feb 2023
  • Preserving Equality — Algebraic Thinking Across Grade Levels 13 Feb 2023

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Upcoming Conference Presentations & Workshops

October 12, 2023
ATMNE Conference
(Portland, ME)
“Cultivating Student Ownership of Mathematical Language and Ideas” (with Louisa Connaughton)

October 27, 2023
NCTM Annual (Washington DC)
“Counting Collections as Context for Liberation” (with Kassia Omohundro Wedekind)

SEE OTHER RECENT EXPERIENCES…

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#tmwyk access centering students ideas child study clinical interview desmos division education equity five practices formative assessment fractions games geometry grade 1 grade 2 grade 3 grade 4 grade 5 grade 6 grade 7 grade 8 illustrative mathematics intervention investigations Investigations (Inv3) kindergarten listening making connections multiplication problem-based instruction problem-based learning productive discussions race remote learning slow reveal graphs student thinking student work visual representations writing
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