The Math Learning Center Blog

Meet Danielle Rubel What grades do you teach and/or what is your title/role? What school, district or institution do you work for? What location? I work as an instructional facilitator (coach) at Westmoor School in Northbrook, IL. In my role, I work with staff and students in kindergarten through fifth grade. Prior to becoming an instructional coach, I was a reading specialist and classroom...

The 100th day of school is nigh! This point in the school year is significant for its place value importance, but it also indicates that the school year is more than half over. It is an exciting milestone for children, sometimes a relief for teachers, and a reason to celebrate for all. At MLC, the past few months have given us our own reason to celebrate the growing popularity of our free math...

Meet Libardo Valencia What grades do you teach and/or what is your title/role? What school, district or institution do you work for? What location? I work as a mathematics teacher at Horace Greeley High School in Chappaqua, New York. I also work as an adjunct lecturer at CUNY Lehman College in the Bronx, New York. During my career, I’ve had the opportunity to teach a wide range of subjects, from...

The hundreds chart is an amazing tool for counting, skip counting, adding, subtracting, multiplying, exploring patterns, investigating place value, problem solving, and more. The standard hundreds chart – with 10 rows of 10 and starting with 1 in the upper left corner – has been used in elementary classrooms for decades to allow for these very opportunities. In more recent years, charts of...

Meet Angelica MedinaDual Language Elementary Educator at Oak Terrace Elementary in Highland Park, IL What grades do you teach and/or what is your title/role? Grade 3 Dual Language Teacher What school, district or institution do you work for? Location? North Shore School District 112 servicing Highwood and Highland Park, Illinois Who inspired you to become an educator? My third- and fifth-grade...

The number rack helps build the bridge from counting to computational fluency by inviting students to think about numbers in groups of 2, 5, and 10. Its 2 rows of 5 red and 5 white movable beads allow students to see and slide beads in groups rather than 1 by 1. Just as we want students to move from sounding out words letter by letter to reading morphemes and whole words, we want students to move...

Meet Josh LabikElementary Educator at Parkside Elementary School in Brookhaven, Pennsylvania What grades do you teach and/or what is your title/role? What school, district or institution do you work for? Location? I am a teacher at Parkside Elementary, currently teaching fifth grade. We are in the Penn-Delco School District located in Brookhaven, Pennsylvania. Who inspired you to become an...

Now more than ever, families are looking for ways to support their students’ mathematics education. They may not know where to start—the Bridges in Mathematics approach might appear a bit different from the way they were taught math. How can Bridges educators offer families a chance to see what a Bridges classroom looks like? How can they offer ideas and options for fostering their students’ math...

Don’t let “at home” in the name fool you. The Math Learning Center’s Math at Home website has evolved into a robust collection of tasks and games that can be used on the playground, in the supermarket, or just about anywhere else—including the classroom. Though originally designed for use by families forced inside by the pandemic, teachers can use the familiar routines to launch a lesson, provide...

Now that all MLC Math Apps have sharing capabilities, we’ve launched an App Activities page on the newly redesigned MLC website. There, teachers can find a repository of app-based problem-solving tasks to engage and challenge students. You can search by keyword or filter by grade level, topic, or app to find an appropriate problem-solving task for your students. While I encourage you to explore...