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The Teacher Studio

Learning, thinking, creating

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Comparison Problems with Tape Diagrams/Strip Diagrams

Comparison Problems: Using Tape Diagrams to Represent Math Thinking Word problems are a key part of rigorous standards everywhere, but teachers and students alike often dread tackling them.  Even textbooks sometimes save them for the bottom few problems on a page or a separate lesson toward the end of a chapter.  The thing is--word problems (at least good ones!) are the "real world" part of ... Read the Post

Fraction Unit Update

It's getting to be "fraction season" for many of us, and having quality fraction lessons and activities is SO important as we try to teach this challenging topic!  Teaching fractions is a passion of mine and led me to create an entire fraction unit that I've shared on my blog over the years.  Over time, people were SO excited to try the lessons and wanted more and more detail about how to teach ... Read the Post

Teaching Area and Perimeter: 8 Tips to Deepen Understanding

So it's time to be teaching area and perimeter, and even though it SEEMS like such a simple concept, students struggle with it every single year. They start the process of learning these concepts in third grade where they build arrays and count squares to find both the perimeter and area, but every year they come in familiar with the terms but needing lots and lots of support. I've learned a ... Read the Post

Why Do We Use Number Lines?

One component of math instruction that is often overlooked is having teachers nurture creative thinking in students.  By encouraging students to create their own meaning and solution strategies rather than just "fill in the blank", depth of understanding is cemented.  This is true for many math concepts, but is often overlooked when teaching using number line activities. Check out this post for ... Read the Post

Graphing Lessons and Activities

One thing that I know to be true is that students need to learn to read, do math, and be critical thinkers.  Quality graphing lessons combine all three!  Unfortunately, what our textbooks often do is present students with a graph and ask them low-level, “right there” questions.  There is a time and a place for that—but I think our students can do so much more.  After all, we want students to learn ... Read the Post

Open-Ended Math Tasks: The Benefits

Open-Ended Math Tasks!  Are you using enough rich math tasks in your class?  Check out this post with a ton of reasons (OK, TWELVE of them!) why we should be incorporating more of these open-ended problem-solving experiences.  Check out all the amazing things we can accomplish with them! Gets students tackling problems that have more than one solution So often we give students problems where ... Read the Post

Daily Math Warm-Ups: Tips to Keep Them Fresh!

One question I get often is “How do you organize your math block?”  It’s a tricky question because I am a person who likes to shake things up and do things differently all the time.   If you come to my class on Tuesday, it will definitely look very different than it did on Monday. I love that--and my students do too. They never know what to expect in terms of how lessons will be delivered--and ... Read the Post