Math (and Time) Is All About Magnitude Once you master foundational facts within 20, you conceptually possess the keys to the entire base-ten kingdom. Our positional number system is purposefully constructed so that a basic grasp of small quantities is…
I still have summer on my mind, so I thought I’d share a math in the wild story from way back in July. “I’m bored. What should I do?” So said my seven year old son while we lazed about…
Do I truly love my venti cold brew with oat milk? Is it force of habit? Could I even handle a morning without it? All questions I often ask myself. Another question that came to mind recently was what is…
Early Numeracy at work! The math just shows up, when you look for it, in small moments. My nephew gets major credit for being the only one of the cousins willing to help me set the table for pizza night…
Today is the summer solstice. I am in Gloucester, Massachusetts, north of Boston, the part of the world from which my family harkens. We had a lovely dinner tonight overlooking Ipswich Bay, where the sunset is spectacular. It is one…
I came across this most charming article the other day, about a funny new unit of measurement called the “smoot” and named after Oliver R. Smoot Jr. who was in MIT’s class of 1962 who in 1958 lay his body…
It is time to expose the secret double life of subtraction. It all comes down to that foundational number sense we work with students to develop as they grow as elementary school mathematicians. We give students the opportunity to build…
The final Books and Big Ideas of the 2025-2026 school year has taken place, and the story so carefully chosen by our incredible Lower School librarian was The Magical Yet by Angela DiTerlizzi. A math educator could not have wished…
A true story “My dad says mistakes are good,” a second grader shared. “He said they help you learn.” We were discussing the importance of giving hard things a try, even if we don’t always succeed. “It is sort of…
Sometimes the best definition is so brief and obvious…if you were to ask me just yesterday how to define fact fluency I would have given you a mouthful of alphabet soup teacher-ese. This morning, over coffee, shuffling through some of…