It’s that time of the year when the ugly monster called “CAASPP” comes lurking about. (That’s the test we take here in California). Teachers are fretting that they may not have covered as many standards as they had wanted. Meanwhile, it’s spring time for students. They are antsy, edgy, and see that summer is around the corner……….or maybe I’m describing …
What Makes Math a Priority in a District?
I am going to be completely honest. I have been struggling with their vision and the direction my district has been heading. I have worked here since 2001 and never given much thought to where we’ve been headed. But ever since I jumped into the elementary world and been more invested in the math community (#MTBOS) and found like minded …
Should elementary math be taught by specialists?
Should elementary math be taught the same way or similar to how middle school math is taught? Would students benefit? Would teachers benefit?
Combining Like Terms
6th grade learns to combine like terms
Ten Percent Increase – Pt.2
During the last blog post, I described the circumstances at the beginning of the year (September 2017). Teachers were fired up about comments made by our superintendent. As a matter of fact, there were teachers who attended and spoke at a board meeting. Let’s just say the board wasn’t thrilled by our superintendent’s words. And this brings us …
12 Ways to Get 11
As I have said countless times in previous posts, my 6th graders have been math buddies with a kindergarten class. The other kinder teacher and I spend numerous hours trying to create and plan different activities for both classes to do. One of the books I came across on Twitter was 12 Ways to Get 11 by Eve Merriam. …
Southern Cali. Kinder Conf. 2018
When you hear “kindergarten”, some of my math peeps will shudder and shake. The idea of teaching “the little people” is an exhausting task. However, this has been part of my universe for a few years now in thanks to my math partner, Stacy. We have been exploring different conferences with enthusiasm. We have brought our math story to primary teachers in …
Asilomar 2017
My math partner, Stacy and I were once again fortunate to present this last weekend. We were invited to speak at California Math Council’s northern conference at Asilomar. We had never been to the northern conference, so we were eager to compare it to our experience in Palm Springs (last year). I had heard that this was smaller and more …
Making sense of conversions
My son, Jared, is in 6th grade. He has told me he thinks it’s “cool” that I’m teaching 6th grade too. According to him, we have stuff to talk about. I can finally help him with his homework. (Really? Like I’ve never been able to help you with any of your other homework?!? What the what?!?!?). Of course I left …
The next term is…
Usually on Thursday nights, I try to squeeze in an hour of professional development by participating in a #elemmathchat on Twitter. It’s a terrific hour of discourse between coaches, teachers, and all kinds of math peeps. Recently, Mark Chubb (@MarkChubb3) hosted a #elemmathchat and posted this. My students know that I love throwing them a “challenge” question every now …