by Melinda | Jun 3, 2019 | Math
Circle, oval, square, rectangle, triangle, trapezoid, pentagon, hexagon, heptagon, octagon, nonagon, decagon … are you teaching shapes? Students need to be able to recognize and name these 2-D shapes and define the characteristics of each shape. There are so many...
by Melinda | Mar 11, 2019 | Math
Last week I talked about why mental math matters and how to teach 5 key mental math skills. Now I want to share a few games that my students love that keep mental math practice fun—even for kids who say they don’t like math. 5 fun mental math games You’ll find a game...
by Melinda | Mar 4, 2019 | Math
Why can’t we just use a calculator? Can’t the computer do it? Do you ever hear this from students who don’t want to do math? They have a point. Calculators and computers can be very useful in figuring out complex problems or crunching large amounts of data, but, as...
by Melinda | Jan 28, 2019 | Math
A couple of weeks ago, I talked about how to introduce skip counting in the classroom. Most kids pick up on skip counting pretty quickly, especially with numbers like 2, 5, and 10. They’ll even get numbers like 3, 4, and 9, but at some point, kids tend to get stuck....
by Melinda | Jan 14, 2019 | Math
Two, four, six, eight … Five, ten, fifteen, twenty … Skip counting by certain numbers becomes so ingrained that it’s easy to forget that this isn’t an immediate concept. Skip counting is being able to count by multiples such as 2 or 5 or 10. Usually, kids learn to...
by Melinda | Nov 26, 2018 | Math
Venn diagrams are a useful tool for sorting data, and one that your students should know how to read and create. When teaching Venn diagrams, start with the basics: Explain that Venn diagrams use overlapping shapes (usually circles) to show relationships. Each circle...
