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Embrace the Challenge

The Blog of a K-8 Math Specialist

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Tag: grade 1

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 20196 Jan 2020
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…
child study…

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…

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Recent Posts

  • Using Slow Reveals to Illuminate Tiny but Powerful Details in Graphs 2 Jan 2023
  • Facilitating Number Boxes, Part 2 – Supporting Reasoning with Representations (Learning With Students) 15 Dec 2022
  • I Don’t Speak Russian, But… 13 Dec 2022
  • “What Are You Hoping For?”: Facilitating the Number Boxes Game to Develop Reasoning – Learning with Teachers 8 Dec 2022
  • Would You Believe Me? #tmwyk 26 Nov 2022
  • How do we measure change in data? 25 Nov 2022
  • Turtle Time Trials & Leveraging Creativity To Deepen Mathematical Understanding 13 Nov 2022
  • Seventeen Pumpkins 2 Nov 2022
  • Five Little Pumpkins: Kindergarten Conjectures 31 Oct 2022
  • Restless Teachers 13 Oct 2022

Archives

Upcoming Conference Presentations & Workshops

February 26, 2023
Build Math Minds’ Virtual Math Summit 
(online, free registration!)
“Using Clinical Interviews in the Math Classroom: Learning from Students”

March 25, 2023
RIMTA Conference (East Providence, Rhode Island)
“Slow Reveal Graphs: An Instructional Routine to Promote Sensemaking About Data”

March 30, 2023
ATMIM Conference
(Worcester, MA)
“Games that Promote Equity and Mathematical Brilliance in the Upper Elementary Classroom” (with Louisa Connaughton)

RECENT SPEAKING

December 1 – 2, 2022
NCTM Regional
(Baltimore, MD)
“Rethinking Pre-Assessments: Gathering Data with Equity in Mind”
“Games that Promote Equity and Mathematical Brilliance in the Upper Elementary Classroom” (with Louisa Connaughton)

November 5, 2022
WMMP Fall Institute (South Hadley, MA)
“Slow Reveal Graphs: An Instructional Routine to Promote Sensemaking about Data”

September 2022
NCTM Annual Meeting (Los Angeles, CA)
“Rethinking Pre-Assessments: Gathering Data with Equity in Mind”

READ MORE…

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Tags

#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 identity illustrative mathematics intervention Investigations (Inv3) kindergarten listening making connections mtbos notice and wonder problem-based instruction problem-based learning productive discussions race remote learning slow reveal graphs student thinking student work tech tools writing
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