Let’s Talk about Math
“I hate math!”, this is a quote younger me would say repeatedly. Throughout my own education, I was someone who didn’t feel confident at math. I often thought, “math just isn’t my thing.” Does this sound familiar? Does your child feel this way about math? Did you? Math can be challenging, but building confidence around mental math strategies and our own math thinking can support students in feeling more successful and empowered!
This year, we’ve implemented a new math curriculum, Illustrative Math.
I notice a huge difference between students’ mental math, math language, and thinking from last year to this year. Illustrative math starts off by building on what strengths students already have in math and allows opportunities for them to share their math thinking orally with their peers. There is a huge emphasis on partner work where students get the opportunity to share HOW they got to a certain answer. Students also have multiple opportunities to share their thinking during whole group instruction.
“Discussions around mathematical thinking, “Help students see their strategy in others and build towards efficiency. Math Talks are designed to elicit multiple strategies, provide opportunities for students to reason about the relationships in the numbers, and make connections in mathematics.”
Another component of math instruction is the focus on addition and subtraction strategies that help students with mental math. For example, in first grade after much review and independent practice, students begin adding two digit numbers. Last year when students would encounter a problem like 32+10, I often observed students drawing 30 circles and 10 circles and then counting them altogether. Although this is a strategy that gets us to the answer, it’s not the most efficient and oftentimes causes students to make mistakes with their counting.
This year, students use place value drawings and counting on to get to the answer. I notice students counting on by placing the big number in their head and using their fingers to count on from given numbers. Most students are using a place value drawing to find the part unknown to solve 2 digit addition problems.( the lines represent tens and the circles/squares represent the ones).
Supporting students in math has been such a rewarding experience. Seeing students feel so confident in their math skills and mathematical thinking has been a joy. In fact, they’ve even taught me a few mental math strategies to put in my math tool box! Try some of these strategies at home with your child.
Linked below are a few math websites that are awesome for at home math practice. Have fun learning and growing!
https://www.ixl.com/signin/detroitaa (ask your child’s teacher for login information)