Math on the Brain

Last weekend I attended the NCTM conference on Numbers and Operations in New Orleans. Saturday I had a great presenter who shared some fresh ideas on Addition and Subtraction. One of the "big ideas" I came away with was: our job is to CONNECT stuff!

We can do this by modeling and representing numbers in many different ways. One example she shared was to start each day with an estimation problem. For 2nd grade she suggests estimating if a group of objects is more or less than one hundred. The students vote by putting a cube in a bag or area in room you have indicated for more or less (that way your kiddos don't change their answer). The "counter of the day" has to organize the group of items in a way where the teacher can quickly see  if it is more or less than one hundred (ex: connector cubes in groups of ten, an array, egg carton with marbles, etc.). Then you MODEL with an equation. The number sentence is something the kids can visually see. The presenter was big on using the term "equation" versus "number sentence." This is where we can connect and show numbers in different ways (i.e. 28 + 26 + 27 + 26 = 107; 100 + 7 = 107).

With all this math on the brain, I have found some great pins that I hope to implement this year.

     


 


Instead of happy reading, I will leave you with happy mathematical thinking!