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The Math Learning Center Blog

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At the Math Learning Center, we believe that all students can make sense of mathematics. Some students just need more time, more opportunities, and more support than others. Our approach emphasizes problem solving, the use of faithful visual models, and a focus on developing fluency. In March 2021, the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) and the What Works Clearinghouse released a new version of...
Nicole Rigelman, Chief Academic Officer
It’s spring! The sun is shining, plants are growing, and frogs and bugs abound. At The Math Learning Center, we’ve created some fun activities with springtime themes to help get your math blooming! Like February’s popular Share the Math Love celebration, each of the following activities includes the Share Your Work feature. You can send students a link or code to access the activity, and students...
Kim Markworth, Director of Content Development
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...
Kim Markworth, Director of Content Development
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...
Patrick Vennebush, Chief Learning Officer
Kim Markworth, Director of Content Development
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...
Shelly Scheafer
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...
Mike Wallus, Vice President for Educator Support
The Learning to Think Mathematically series, written by Dr. Jeff Frykholm, is now available free from The Math Learning Center. These insightful books provide families and educators with innovative resources and novel strategies to help young learners develop powerful mathematical insights and problem-solving strategies. The premise underlying the Learning to Think Mathematically series is that...
Collin Nelson
Last year we added Math and the Mind’s Eye to our collection of free resources. Math and the Mind’s Eye is a supplemental program based on visual models that can be taught in sequence or used as individual lessons. The 14 units that make up this program cover math concepts typically taught in middle school but extend into upper and lower grade levels as well. To round out our secondary offerings...
Collin Nelson
Learning List , a K-12 instructional materials evaluation service, recently released independent alignment reports and an editorial review of Bridges in Mathematics second edition. Each grade level K-5 was found to address 100% of the Common Core State Standards. Number Corner second edition was also reviewed. Grades K-5 were found to address on average 95% of the Common Core State Standards...
The Number Pieces app is an excellent tool for teaching and learning place value. Here are a few activities that you can use with kids in grades 1–2. These activities explore base ten concepts and models within 1,000 that will help lay the foundation for learning double-digit computation. Activity 1: Ask the child to show a certain number using the base ten pieces. For example, 3 tens, 7 ones, and...
Jami Smith