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The Teacher Studio

Learning, thinking, creating

Math Workshop Thanksgiving Style

So often, I get questions like, "What does math workshop look like in your classroom?" and it's always such a tough question to answer--because it changes all the time.  So I thought I'd tell you about my plans for the next week or so leading up until Thanksgiving--and see if you can picture what I'll be doing!  Maybe in a month or so I'll do another post and show another "twist" on math ... Read the Post

Helping Students “Make Sense” of Problems

Teaching math is a complicated venture--to say the least.  Between figuring out how to meet the needs of all our students, balance a jam-packed curriculum, worry about interventions and enrichment--and then throw in fire drills, strep throat epidemics, students gone on vacations, meetings...it's a wonder we get anything done! The one thing I always use to "center" myself is the Standards ... Read the Post

Rethinking Problem Solving: More Than a Word Problem

For years I have used the phrase "problem solving does not equal word problems", but I love it when I have a real world "math experience" that helps prove this point.  Today was one of those days--so I thought I'd share! If you have followed me for any length of time, you may have seen me post about "Mind Boggling Math", a resource I created about three years ago to help provide me students ... Read the Post

Problem solving in the “real world”

One thing that I think is super important for students to understand is that math is REAL.  Math isn't "fill in the blanks" in your workbook...or a practice sheet...or even a math game.  Math is everywhere--and in everything.  Getting students to recognize this is key--and helping them see that math can help them make sense of their world and solve REAL problems should be a key part ... Read the Post

When Problem Solving, Precision, and Computation Meet: 5 Ideas to Ponder

I think it would be hard to find someone who would argue with the following statement: All students need to learn how  to compute efficiently and precisely. I mean--I sure can't argue with it!  I think the discussion comes in when we talk about how we expect our students to get there. Take these practice pages for example.  I use them.  In fact, they are part of two ... Read the Post

Math Talk, Open Ended Problems–and Thinking Backwards!

As you know if you have followed me for any length of time, I love to have my students work collaboratively on "challenging" tasks...and because it is testing season in my room, I like to give my students as much interaction with each other in our non-testing hours as possible! You may have seen (or even tried) some of my "Thinker Task" challenges...so they involved a real-life scenario where ... Read the Post

Elapsed Time,Solving Problems, and Addressing Misconceptions

As we move into the upper grades, we sometimes make some assumptions about some of those "basic skills" such as time, money, and basic computation.  It is super important that we consistently put students in positions to apply these skills in new, more complex ways so we can keep our eye out for deficit areas and misconceptions. So...I wanted to bring out some money and time problems to ... Read the Post