Foundational Math Topics
Age/Grade Levels
Content Formats
Series
Content Format: Article
Activities, ideas, and discussion helping teachers think through maths in classrooms.
Series: Ideas at Work
Counting Collections Builds Strong Counting Knowledge
October 16, 2019
There are all kinds of things to count in pre-k to second grade classrooms. Counting Collections is an activity that develops the Big Ideas of number sense and counting, such as cardinality, one-to-one correspondence, and unitizing.
- Topic: Counting, Number Sense
- Age/Grade Level: 1st Grade, 2nd Grade, Kindergarten, Pre-K
Series: About the Collaborative September 11, 2019
New Book Tells Where to Find Math Fun in Books, Games, and Routines
Books, games, and routines are a natural entry point for math fun in the early years. A new book tells how to tap into children's curiosity to explore the math that is found in everyday life and in play.
- Age/Grade Level: 1st Grade, Kindergarten, Pre-K
- Tags Games
Series: Book Ideas August 28, 2019
5 Books and Songs for Exploring Growing Patterns
Cumulative tales and rhymes illustrate growing patterns, typically an increase or decrease by one on each page. As the growing pattern is revealed through the story, children get excited because they can figure out "what comes next."
- Topic: Pattern
- Age/Grade Level: 1st Grade, Kindergarten, Pre-K
- Tags Animals, Culture, Demi, Graeme Base, Jacqueline Woodson, Lilly Hong
Series: Book Ideas July 29, 2019
Different Types of Shapes and Nonexamples to Spark Geometric Learning
It’s up to us to find, share, and talk about a variety of shapes with children in ways that expand their understanding and build connections between the shapes drawn on paper and the concrete objects in our world.
Series: Focus on Play April 29, 2019
A New Focus for Familiar Card Games
Here you can download cards and simple-to-learn game ideas to help young children build their understanding of early math concepts such as cardinality and composing and comparing numbers.
- Topic: Number Sense
- Age/Grade Level: Kindergarten, Pre-K
- Tags Dot cards, Equivalence, Games, Subitizing
Series: About the Collaborative April 23, 2019
Teachers as Knowledgeable Others in the Spotlight at Math Conference
Everyone knows it’s better to teach someone how to fish than to hand out fish. In terms of professional development, this philosophy means empowering classroom teachers to grow their own practice by facilitating the learning of other teachers.
Series: Book Ideas March 24, 2019
3 Books That Encourage Simple Graph Explorations with Young Ones
At the heart of it, graphing in the early years is about quantifying information in order to answer a question. That requires children to organize data in some visible way so that comparisons and generalizations are possible.
- Topic: Data Analysis
- Age/Grade Level: 1st Grade, Kindergarten, Pre-K
- Tags Comparing, Graphing
Series: Focus on the Child January 29, 2019
Many Ways to See How Many
Regardless of how high a preschooler can rote count, a child’s sense of what those numbers actually mean develops gradually. We call this understanding number sense, and it requires relating numbers to real quantities.
- Topic: Number Sense
- Age/Grade Level: Kindergarten, Pre-K
- Tags Dot cards, Estimation, Subitizing, Unifix Cubes
Series: Book Ideas January 11, 2019
4 Fun Books that Explore Math, Patterns, and Sequences
From an early age, children notice and appreciate patterns in the world around them. Patterns and sequences of different kinds begin to pop up all over the place, especially in the books that children love.
- Topic: Pattern
- Age/Grade Level: 1st Grade, Kindergarten, Pre-K
- Tags Animals, Audrey Wood, Bill Martin Jr., Eric Carle, Trudy Harris
Series: Ideas at Work November 7, 2018
Counting on Good Food for the Holidays
Traditions around food and feasts provide rich opportunities to connect math at school with children’s experiences at home. From Diwali to Thanksgiving, fall is a season of special meals with loved ones.
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