Following up on my last blog post about counting on the swings, I wanted to share some more videos of me and Katherine counting with our son, Asa. What’s the goal in this? To let counting and numbers be fun, empowering, and a way [...]
I’ve been interested enough in Early Family Math to join on as a partner. The goal of the project is make quality resources available to families to support playful, joyful, mathematical play for young kids. I helped a little with [...]
Some natural conjectures about 1-2 Nim The person who goes first wins. The person who goes second wins. Who wins depends on how many counters there are. It doesn’t matter what you do until there are 5 counters left. You win if there [...]
Over the years, we’ve thought a lot about the steps one needs to take to go from beginner to expert at teaching math. It wasn’t enough to explain or demonstrate something extraordinary. Teachers needed to get excited about [...]
We are, as a rule, skeptical of the promises of the EdTech world. When so many students (young students especially) need hands-on materials, why put them on screens? And why do so [...]
There’s a place for facts in math class. They end experiences. Think of a fact as a snapshot you take from the top of the mountain you just climbed. It reminds to of the [...]
We recently took on a massive overhaul of our summer/intervention curriculum. Seattle Public Schools wanted to use it for some number of students; this being the pandemic and [...]
There should be no doubt that racist ideas are bankrupt, and racist policy is unjust, that injustice toward any of us hurts all of us.
This video follows up on the previous blog post, on understanding multiplication. Put in the time now and get this foundational understanding laid right.
What does “solve 3 x 8” mean? There are actually two crucial pieces of information to parse for this to mean anything. “x” means “groups of” First off, the [...]
I posted a little while ago about the importance of representations in subtraction. Today, I’m sharing a followup video on how to extend that understanding of fractions to [...]
A teacher named Mark Esch emailed me recently to ask about using one of our classroom games, Horseshoes, in a movie he wanted to make. When he sent it to me, I was blown away. It’s fun, and does a great job explaining the game. But [...]
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