Bridges Blog Archive for School and Home

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.

In January, the Calendar Grid challenges 5th grade students to identify and build 3-dimensional objects from 2-dimensional representations. Students use front, top, and side views to create structures with centimeter cubes. If students build on cardboard sheets or lunchtrays, cube structures can be easily transported to the document camera.

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?

Interested in some geometric transformation practice that is out-of-this-world? In TranStar, players reflect, rotate and translate, in order to move a shape through outer space. From the site:

Guest blogger, Shelly Scheafer, teaches 1st grade in the Bend-LaPine School District, Oregon. Here she suggests a wonderful idea to complete the year. It could be modified to fit a variety of grade levels and mathematical content.

It's the end of the year. What will you do with the Math Story Problems the students created?

Where is the SMath? is a blog designed to help students recognize the Math and Science found in daily life. A description from the site:

Each post will include a picture depicting Math, Science or both (Smath). Many times the connections will be obvious to students, while other times the connections to "Smath" may be revealed as teachers facilitate discussion about the image through their questioning.

A recent conversation with some Bridges teachers got me to thinking about math vocabulary. This group of 4th and 5th grade teachers were thrilled with how naturally--and often--math vocabulary appears in lessons. Knowing that vocabulary is introduced as early as kindergarten, they were curious to see what words were used in which grade levels.