December 2013 – Denise Gaskins' Let's Play Math

Quotable: Focus on Being Silent

Posted on December 27, 2013May 13, 2022 by Denise Gaskins

[Photo by Pratham Books via flickr (CC BY 2.0).]

I discovered this gem in my blog reading today. One of the secrets of great teaching:

Audrey seemed, for once, at a loss for words. She was thinking about the question.

I try to stay focused on being silent after I ask young children questions, even semi-serious accidental ones. Unlike most adults, they actually take time to think about their answers and that often means waiting for a response, at least if you want an honest answer.

If you’re only looking for the “right” answer, it’s fairly easy to gently badger a child into it, but I’m not interested in doing that.

— Thomas Hobson
Thank You For Teaching Me

Learn Math by Asking Questions

The best way for children to build mathematical fluency is through conversation. For more ideas on discussion-based math, check out these posts:

And be sure to follow Christopher Danielson’s Talking Math with Your Kids blog!

Multiplication Models Card Game

Posted on December 17, 2013May 5, 2020 by Denise Gaskins

Homeschooling parents know that one of the biggest challenges for any middle-elementary math student is to master the multiplication facts. It can seem like an unending task to memorize so many facts and be able to pull them out of mental storage in any order on demand.

Too often, we are tempted to stress the rote aspect of such memory work, which makes our children lose their focus on what multiplication really means. Before practicing the times table facts, make sure your student gets plenty of practice recognizing and using the common models for multiplication.

To help your children see what multiplication looks like in real life, explore the multitude of Multiplication Models collected at the Natural Math website. Or sign up for their Multiplication Explorers Online Course.

You may want to pick up this poster and use it for ideas as you play the Tell Me a (Math) Story game. Word problems are important for children learning any new topic in math, because they give children a mental “hook” on which to hang the abstract number concepts.

And for extra practice, you can play my free card game…

Click here to continue reading.

Math Teachers at Play Blog Carnival #69 via Kids Math Teacher

Posted on December 12, 2013December 28, 2019 by Denise Gaskins

The new Math Teachers at Play blog carnival is up for your browsing pleasure. Featured articles include activities and enrichment from preschool through high school:

Math Teachers at Play Blog Carnival #69 via Kids Math Teacher

“While my site focuses on elementary level math concepts, I strongly think that young kids can understand complex concepts that are not taught until much later (and I think most math teachers feel that way. Do you agree?). The Math Teachers at Play Blog Carnival can contain math concepts/topics from Pre-school to Calculus.

“This month for December’s carnival there were 12 days of Christmas entries! I put them in order starting from earliest math to the most advanced math…”

Click here to go read the Blog Carnival post at Kids Math Teacher.

One Right Way

Posted on December 11, 2013May 13, 2022 by Denise Gaskins

One-Right-Way

What’s really neat about mathematics is that even when there’s only one right answer, there’s never only one right way to do the problem.

— Herb Gross

CREDITS: Today’s quote is from Herb Gross, via Math as a Second Language. Background photo courtesy of kristos_b (CC BY 2.0) via Flickr.