In the primary grades, engaging in counting collections provides students with regular opportunities to make sense of numbers in dynamic ways, build social skills, and communicate about mathematics. This article aims to guide elementary educators through a team's process of planning and implementing counting collections in kindergarten. Counting…

Develop your students' grade-level mathematical reasoning and problem-solving skills. Discover how your collaborative team can ensure all students learn grade-level mathematics during Tier 1 and Tier 2 instruction. This valuable guide provides preK-12 teachers with ready-to-use tools and strategies to help students communicate using mathematical…

Early mathematics plays an important role in introducing foundational concepts for number sense in children. One of the critical areas of learning is the establishment of a linear view of numbers. It is essential to create opportunities for young children to understand that numbers are equally spaced on the number line and that they increase in…

Building upon the blockbuster success of "Building Thinking Classrooms in Mathematics," Peter Liljedahl has joined forces with co-author Maegan Giroux to bring the Building Thinking Classrooms (BTC) framework to life in this new book, "Mathematics Tasks for the Thinking Classroom, Grades K-5." But this book is so much more than…

The mathematical modeling process is also a powerful way to teach students the meaning of data. In mathematical modeling, students are collecting data to answer a question. Data collection is the means to an end and not the end in itself. The author was looking for an engaging way to introduce his third-grade mathematics class to the skill of…

Teachers can make number talks more ambitious and increase learning opportunities for students by debugging errors, promoting multi-student thinking, and orienting to make connections. This article describes the basic number talks routine and examines some common tendencies, such as "Serial Sharing." It concludes with a vignette to…

Adaptive teachers use student data to guide instruction. Learn about using an anecdotal record form to support adaptive teaching. In this article, the authors describe how teachers can use learning trajectories to make adaptive decisions to meet the needs of their students. They provide an example using the U .S. Math Recovery Council's learning…

In typical school mathematics, students experience problem solving in different ways. Sometimes students learn about problem solving by being introduced to different strategies, such as making a table or drawing a picture. Other times, problem solving is presented as a context for applying previously learned mathematics skills and concepts.…

The results of this study revealed students' solution strategies progressed from inefficient strategies e.g., counting on fingers to more efficient strategies with mathematical connections. These findings should enable educators to gain more insight to use Number Talks to help student develop computational fluency with numbers.

Australian primary school teachers have reported that they use games frequently in teaching mathematics. In this paper, the authors discuss the game mechanics of five types of whole-class games that can be particularly powerful for supporting mathematical thinking and student engagement in mathematics.

This article draws on the simple context of a two animal farm to create an engaging and mathematically meaningful problem solving task for students. It aims to encourage students to think systematically and to present their findings methodically. The task is structured sequentially, making it suitable for primary school students from Year 1 to…

The need for focused small group math instruction has never been greater. Today's education landscape continues to be fraught with learning divides, and unlike its reading counterpart, small group instruction in elementary classrooms has often been reduced to learning centers and rotation stations, without enough emphasis on differentiated,…

It is time to reimagine what is possible and celebrate the brilliance that multilingual learners bring to today's classrooms. Innovative teaching strategies can position these learners as leaders in mathematics. Yet, even as the number of multilingual learners in North American schools grows, many teachers have not had opportunities to gain the…

Learning to teach mathematics content courses designed for prospective elementary teachers (PTs) is challenging. Mathematics content instructors must be prepared to not only teach mathematics content, but engage PTs in understanding children's mathematical thinking strategies, learning trajectories, and misconceptions (Carpenter et al., 1996;…

The National Academy of Education (NAEd) Civic Reasoning and Discourse project aims to support civic reasoning and discourse in the schools by helping teachers across disciplines to prepare youth in the United States to examine and discuss complex issues in ways that are thoughtful, developmentally appropriate, and respectful of others' opinions…