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Showing posts from April, 2016

Giveaway!

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The Hip Homeschool Moms Homeschool Teacher Appreciation Giveaway is this week — and Math Mammoth is taking part! On Wednesday April 27, I will be giving away ONE copy of Math Mammoth All Inclusive Bundle TWO copies of Math Mammoth Light Blue series bundles ...so be sure to enter! Just click this link to join in the fun! This giveaway runs till April 29, 2016. ALSO... Hip Homeschool Moms website has a large collection of Math Mammoth reviews . Feel free to read them, of course, but I'd also like to invite any of you who've used my materials to actually LEAVE a review there.

Bar graphs for 1st grade

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I'm sorry, I'm sure this will seem silly to you as an adult... but keep in mind, I'm just trying to appeal a the little folks! This video is for about 1st grade level.

Breaking a large rectangle into two (and the distributive property)

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While I feel that most of the Common Core math standards are fairly good, here's one place where I disagree with them (3.MD.7.c). It has to do with the topic when a larger rectangle is broken into TWO parts, and then children write a math sentence from it such as (3 × 4) + (3 × 2). This is in 3rd grade in the CCS. I feel it is a bit too difficult for that level, and would better fit 4th or even 5th grade. Someone just wrote me recently concerning this topic, wondering WHY do we do all this in the first place. Here's my answer. The reason for breaking the rectangle into two is to get students familiar with this: 7 × (2 + 8) = 7 × 2 + 7 × 8 which is (essentially) the distributive property. The idea is to familiarize the students with how multiplication works with addition , and we use an AREA MODEL to show or prove that. I decided to edit a video for this topic to help the person who asked... The video just explains HOW we do the rectangle thing, not why.

Connection between subtraction and addition (1st grade)

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For 1st graders (mostly)... an initial lesson about the CONNECTION between addition and subtraction:

Messages we convey about math...

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COMPARE the messages we typically give children when they fail in THESE activities... versus when they fail in math: http://mathmisery.com/wp/2016/01/14/comic-43-messages/

ICT math games

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Check out ICT games — lots of math games for kindergarten through grade 3. The games emphasize concepts which I always like. In fact, I have included numerous games from this site in the online resources lists in the Math Mammoth curriculum. The game topics include counting, addition, subtraction, number facts, odd and even, doubles, more/less, shape and measures, time, place value, multiplication & rounding, and British money. For example, my 2nd grader enjoyed Catapult Count On game just a few days ago. In it, you use your knowledge of number bonds to 10, but with two-digit numbers: you "jump" from a given number to the next multiple of 10. For example: 32 + ____ = 40. If it is too easy "as is", tick the 'hide jumps' box.

Grams and kilograms on a kitchen scale - video lesson

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In this video, I show how to weigh things on a kitchen scale, while helping children learn about the two most important units in the metric system for measuring weight: GRAMS and KILOGRAMS. We weigh an onion, tomatoes, dominoes, Mathy my mascot... and his cousin Giganto the mammoth also!