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Today we’re thrilled to welcome Tara from The Elementary Math Maniac to the blog to share the second part of her interview with Julie McNamara, author of Beyond Pizzas & Pies and Beyond Invert & Multiply. You can read the first part of the interview on her blog.   How did you go from being…

Recently I read Matt Larson’s message on homework and reflected on how much my own stance on homework has evolved in the last decade. Initially, I struggled alone with creating homework, photocopying weekly packets, and spending hours checking and tracking what students did. Things improved when I worked with grade-level colleagues to carefully select questions…

We’re thrilled to welcome Kristin Gray, K-5 Math Specialist and author of Math Minds, to the blog today. She recently interviewed Sherry Parrish and Ann Dominick, authors of Number Talks: Fractions, Decimals, & Percentages, about their processes and experience as math educators. Both authors share how their careers in math education inspired their work with number talks,…

An important mathematics concept for children to learn is that all halves of the same whole are the same size. If the whole is divided into different sizes, then they are not halves. While halves of the same shape must be the same size, they do not have to be the same shape. For example,…

When teaching fractions, it’s important to give students the opportunity to compare and order fractions, and practice equivalent and non-equivalent fractions. Try this activity for fourth and fifth-grade students who have already explored fractional parts of halves, fourths, eighths, and sixteenths. The lesson demonstrates students’ levels of comprehension, and helps them improve their reasoning skills. With the…

You can connect fractions with something most students identify with: getting money.

The Pizza Problem is a great way to apply mathematical information in a real-world context. Challenge your seventh and eighth graders to apply their understanding of area and order of operations with the pricing of pizza. When teaching a unit on the area of circles, I asked a class of seventh- and eighth-grade students to investigate…

The benchmark of a 1/2 on a number line is perhaps one of the most important visual tools in building fraction sense. With the aid of either of a number line or pie chart (or both!), we suggest a visual aid with a fraction question so that students may connect abstract and concrete reasoning. Try this class…

Fractions are a critical foundation in mathematics, and at Math Solutions, we are dedicated to providing teachers with the tools they need to promote fraction sense in their classrooms. That’s why we’re taking the opportunity to celebrate Fractions February! We’ll be sharing fun and informative fractions resources all month long here on the blog and on…

Thank you for taking part in our first #MathTalkChat of the new year and discussing fractions in the the classroom! In case you missed out, here’s a quick recap with a few select tweets. To see the full chat transcript, check out our Storify. Please join us next month, in February, the last Wednesday of…