![]() After finding pairs of factors, written as multiplication equations, we list the factors in order (Fig. I thought this would also be an appropriate structure for my grade 5s but I have shifted the focus from skip counting to determining all the factors of the day’s number. Each day we added a number to the number line that corresponded to the number of days we had been at school. When I held the DMD in the primary grades, the centrepiece was a number line structured in rows of 10. The joy and engagement that my students bring to this routine and the growth in mental math skills, mathematical discourse, and understanding of many math concepts, has made the Daily Math Discussion a cornerstone of my junior grade math program. For example, preserving place value by working left to right. Children are forced to move away from pencil and paper calculations and traditional algorithms, which are also important, and to move toward strategies where they work in their heads, often decomposing numbers and working in ways that might be more meaningful. Children are continually exposed to concepts, rather than limiting them to math units that may be forgotten once a new topic is introduced.Īnother benefit of this discourse-based routine is the development of mental math skills. ![]() ![]() Most importantly, working with the same concepts day after day can build knowledge and skills and, I hope, lead to children feeling comfortable and wanting to participate. As well, different strategies may resonate with particular children. Asking for several children to explain a strategy or their thinking can help children who may offer to speak only after they’ve heard several other children’s ideas. Giving adequate wait time (Mary Budd Rowe, 1972) can give children who are less confident or who need more time to process their ideas more time to think. It’s important that the stronger math students don’t dominate. We can also model this by asking children to address the mistakes we teachers make with kindness and respect.įor the DMD to be effective, we must create a space where children who have different levels of skill and confidence as math learners can participate in a way that feels good to them. We talk a lot about the opportunities that mistakes give us to learn and grow our understanding. Paramount during the DMD, and in all my teaching, is to create a safe space where children can take risks, theorize, and share their thinking and strategies, and to know that they will be supported by both me and by their classmates. At times, I may need to help with this process. My approach is to record the incorrect answer and have the child explain their thinking, which often results in the child seeing where they have gone astray. Showing both conventional algorithms and invented strategies, often beside each other, can also be very illuminating.Ī consideration when working on math concepts in a discourse and inquiry-based way is what to do when children’s answers are incorrect. Diagrams that show things like fractional parts are helpful (Fig 1). The open number line is a helpful way to see relationships between whole numbers, decimals, fractions or percents. Organizing data in ways that help children see patterns and relationships is important and can be framed for children as something that mathematicians love to do. Answers included, reproducible, 127 pgs.There are several models and tools I use to make children’s thinking visible or to teach or reinforce concepts. Algebra skills covered are expressions, operations, equations with variables, exponents, roots and radicals, inequalities, coordinate graphing, functions, and more. Please note: Although the algebra level book follows the same pattern of 5 practice problems per day, there are not set "types" of problems for each day of the week. Practice problems are set up in a spiraling sequence with the difficulty level increasing each successive week. With each week's activities centered around a particular theme like the Titanic or inventions, students will not only sharpen their math skills but also learn real facts about the topic at hand. Friday activities follow a slightly different pattern with two computational, one algebraic, one "random," and one challenge problem. Measurement and number concepts round out the remaining two types of problems Tuesdays and Thursdays. The remaining two activities for Mondays and Wednesdays contain a statistic/probability activity and a geometry one. Monday through Thursday problem sets consist of one computational, one problem-solving, and one algebra problem. Similar to Daily Math Practice, these provide grade appropriate practice problems on a daily basis for 36 weeks. Use It! Don't Lose It! Daily Math Practice
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