April is recognized nationally as Autism Acceptance Month and April 2nd is recognized by the United Nations as Autism Awareness Day. In honor of promoting Autism awareness and acceptance, I thought this week we could explore one of the most common cognitive impairments that challenge...
No teacher wants to admit it, but every year certain math lessons and even whole chapters are either skimmed or skipped over entirely. But before anyone who is not a teacher gets all judgmental, please realize that math teachers face a steep uphill battle every year trying to cover the whole...
Ahhh the ever mysterious 504 plan. In many schools and school districts if you ask a teacher or school personnel about one, it seems to be something that no one can ever really give you a straight answer about and a topic that many even may avoid, embarrassed that they have no idea how to answer...
Ask any teacher or student what their least favorite thing about math is and more than likely you will hear the response of word problems come up again and again. They are no picnic for parents either! For students staring down a word problem, it can feel like they are being tested on an entirely...
State testing week brings out all the feels! Teachers, students and parents all feel the pressure to perform as schools attempt to simultaneously emphasize just how important these tests are while also advising not to stress out the students with too much, well, pressure. It can feel impossible...
Guess what?! It’s officially SPRING BREAK season!! I say season because depending on your school district and where you live in the country your Spring Break could fall anywhere in between the first week in March and the second week in April. This week out of school is a fun time to enjoy...
Personal sharing time alert. When my third child was 18 months old I took him to his pediatrician to receive his scheduled immunizations (which included 5 different shots!). Later that day he suffered a traumatic seizure in which he fell unexpectedly, began jerking uncontrollably and...
One of the most important concepts for students to master when working with fractions is that of equivalent fractions. Being able to recognize and create equivalent fractions is a skill that is utilized at almost every level of mathematics.
Third graders begin exploring equivalent fractions...
Fraction strips are probably the most well-known and used fractions manipulative in math classrooms far and wide. They provide a concrete way to model fraction notation, partitioning, equivalency, magnitude and more. Research has shown time and time again that using fraction strips to...
When a child first begins to count, they immediately begin to be encouraged by their adults to count a multitude of things: fingers, blocks, claps, steps etc. Associating a number with a specific quantity is the very cornerstone of number sense. So much so that if you peek inside any...
When it comes to working with fractions, you can never have enough tricks up your sleeve. Whether it is a way to help your students remember the correct order of several steps to solve a confusing problem, or just a trick that provides a less complicated way of doing things, we’ve got...
For many students in late elementary school, the return from winter break will kick off a different kind of season: Fraction Season! Fractions are mission critical for success in late elementary, middle and high school math but are often a source of frustration and confusion for students,...
