Celebrating Earth Day the Math Way
In honor of Earth Day, I wanted to take a moment to share part of a TedX talk from Australian math educator Eddie Woo. He shares the most magical explorations of what math is and how it is apparent in…
Data Literacy: Reading the World!
Data literacy is one of the more important skills we can build in young mathematicians, and one that is very fun to support both in the classroom and at home. There is so much to understand about the world when…
The Math of Poetry (not to be confused with the Poetry of Math)
April marks the 30th year of National Poetry Month and with it a new way to explore the math that infuses the beauty of language. What do you think about when you consider how math and poetry might be related?…
On the Hunt for Math at MoMA
You’re dropping one kid at a birthday party in midtown and you’ve got the other kid in tow. Heading home is an option, though the moment you arrive home it will be time to reverse course and head back to…
“Use The Math You Know”
“Use the math you know.” It is one of my most important mantras. In fact, I rarely have to say it anymore. When I review an upcoming homework assignment with my students, and we come to a tricky looking or…
The Interior Life of Addition
We’ve covered the critical pieces of developing counting with meaning in this post. What happens next? Enter additive thinking! When counting gives way to reasoning, it is the beginning of additive thinking. The journey from “count everything” to “just know…
Dice and Dominoes
Dice and dominoes are probably some of the first quantities we consciously subitize and assign a numerical value to as children. (Subitizing, you say? What’s that? Check out this post on the many nuances of counting.) The “pip” or dot…
Counting: “Easy as 1-2-3”?
What would you think if I told you counting was actually not as easy as 1-2-3? I was as surprised as you when I studied the development of numeracy in our youngest mathematicians. What we might consider done and dusted…
Maryam Mirzakhani: Curiosity and Creativity
This post features ideas and text from student guest editor E.B. from Class III. Maryan Mirzakhani is one of the mathematicians we learn about as we explore the habits of mind of mathematicians who have accomplished amazing things. We often…
Making Connections and Asking “Why?”
When a student is used to scrutinizing the values she is working with, the connections emerge. Often the kids are so excited to share the connections they’ve made that they annotate their math homework or burst into an excited monologue…