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The Math Learning Center Blog

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We’ve all had those conversations in which someone laments that math isn’t taught the same way it was “in the good ole days.” Our understanding of best practices in mathematics has changed, and change can be difficult for everyone. And it can be especially difficult to a parent who just worked a long day and is now trying to help their student with homework, using strategies they never learned in...
Looking for resources to educate parents? Bridges leaders Barb Blanke, Kimberly Kelly, and Jessica Djuric have compiled a wealth of slides, articles, books, and handouts that could be used for family gatherings, student-led conferences, back-to-school sessions and more. Visit their site, Effective Parent Education. For additional ideas, see Lori Bluemel and Pia Hansen’s posts about Family Math...
Cynthia Hockman-Chupp
Children need lots of practice, with various activities in different settings, to develop a strong sense of number. My kindergartners love an activity I call Estimation Bag. I place a small plastic container inside a canvas bag, and a student adds a single type of object: paperclips, pennies, barrettes, etc. We start with 10 or fewer and increase the quantity to between 10 and 20 after a month or...
Marion Leonard
We’ve been talking with educators at conferences, in workshops, and online about how they use (and love) our apps. This feedback is critical to making sure our apps stay useful and relevant in your classroom. Earlier this summer we updated the Geoboard, Number Rack, and Number Pieces apps. Next on our to-do list was Number Line. The Number Line app has always been a great way for students to...
Collin Nelson
Bridges students learn more than one way to solve multi-digit multiplication expressions. This enables them to select the strategy that is most efficient for any given problem. In addition to the standard algorithm that many of us were taught, fifth graders also investigate: Area model & four partial products Doubling & halving Ratio table Using quarters Over strategy While my students use the new...
The Math Learning Center is making updates to all of our free math apps. We’ve listened to your feedback, and we think you’re going to love the new features. So far, we’ve updated 3 of our 6 apps. Geoboard, Number Rack, and Number Pieces are all ready to download in the Ipad version. Web version updates will follow by April 1. Here’s a list of the new features: Geoboard Updated look and feel...
Jami Smith
Dr. Raj Shah explains why math is now taught differently than it was in the past and helps address misconceptions about "new math". Dr. Shah is the owner and founder of Math Plus Academy an academic enrichment program with two locations in Columbus, Ohio. Math Plus Academy offers class in math, robotics, programming and chess for kids from KG to 9th grade. Math Plus Academy is on a mission to show...
Jami Smith
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
The array model, used throughout Bridges, is the subject of “Arrays, Multiplication and Division” by Jennie Pennant from nrich.maths.org. The piece outlines how the array model supports development of a sense of multiplicative relationships and describes how to move students from building multiplication facts and tables to exploring division as the inverse operation of multiplication. The author...
Jami Smith
Art is an essential element of our human experience, offering aesthetic pleasure as well as a method for expressing and contemplating meaning. But what if art could also be used as a vehicle for building critical thinking and communications skills? That is the premise and promise behind Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS), an educational program developed more than 20 years ago by Philip Yenawine and...
Rick Ludeman, Chief Executive Officer