by Jennifer Van Blair | Jan 22, 2023 | Classroom Management, Math
Ladies, let’s be real – we all need a little drink (or two) to get through the school week. But, let’s raise a glass to something even more important: Engaging our students and building a strong classroom community through the use of task cards!...
by Jennifer Van Blair | Nov 12, 2022 | Engagement, Math
When I taught fifth grade, it always seemed as though it was the first time my students encountered the distributive property of multiplication. This was true of so many concepts I taught in math at the fifth grade level. My students looked at me as if they had never...
by Jennifer Van Blair | Oct 30, 2022 | Engagement, Math
High student engagement in math is the most effective way to make concepts stick. It’s also hard. Sometimes we are told what to teach and how to teach it. The result is showing up to the classroom and opening the book to the current lesson. We teach verbatim and use...
by Jennifer Van Blair | Oct 16, 2022 | Math
Why writing math word problems is important for students: Stop and think about when you really learned the most with math word problems? As a student learning math, I was able to follow steps and procedures to “DO” the math, but did I really understand it? No. I think...
by Jennifer Van Blair | Oct 12, 2022 | Math
A few years ago, my students tanked a word problem situations assessment. When talking with my principal at the time, he said, “If we improve students’ reading abilities, then their word problem understanding will improve also.” Intrigued by this thought, I looked at...
