Bridges Blog Archive for Grades K-5

With Valentine's Day quickly approaching, don't forget to consider valentine math! Here are some fun ideas:

Valentine's Day at Mathwire

Valentine's Day Math & Science Freebies from Sub Hub

How do you ensure engagement from all students? On Lesson Cast, you'll find a 2:24 minute video called "Every Student Response Strategies." In it, you'll find pictures and descriptions of several techniques designed to generate responses from every student, including:

Xtra Math is a free, online program designed to help kids master basic math facts: addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. Student accounts can be accessed from computers at home or school. Progress reports are available.

While the program can provide fact fluency support to any child, it may be an especially helpful tool in fourth grade as students work on "Quick Facts"  during Number Corner Computational Fluency, January through March.

Approaching the 100th day of school? We'd love to know what you're doing to celebrate! Share your ideas in the comment section. And check out a blog entry from Bruce Goldstone, describing the making of his book, 100 Ways to Celebrate 100 Days. (Who knew that Swedish fish dissolve in gelatin??) Also, visit Dr.

In September and October we took a little peek into Shelly Schaefer's first grade Bridges classroom. Wanting perspective from an advanced educator and mathematician, we invited Eric Stade to reflect on what he read about Shelly's classroom. Eric received a PhD in Mathematics at Columbia in 1988.

Blog guest, Alison Fox Mazzola, is a Math Specialist leading her school through the first year of Bridges at St. Matthew's Episcopal Day School in San Mateo, California. Here she reflects on first year implementation in an independent setting. [Photos are from her school.]

Question: How did you first introduce Bridges?

At the Northwest Math Conference in October I listened to an exciting presentation by Dr. Tim Pelton and Dr. Leslee Francis Pelton from the University of Victoria (Canada). With the support of others at the university, they have developed MathTappers, a series of free math apps designed to help children make sense of mathematics.