Focus on the Child videos are taken from one-on-one interviews with individual children. The interviews are designed to elicit evidence of children’s mathematical thinking. They are not teaching episodes or formal assessments.
April 10, 2014
This second grader uses derived facts to solve mentally. Just one example of mental math strategies used by elementary students.
This second grader has uncertainty about the meaning of the digits. He is working to construct the understanding that place determines the value of a number.
A child estimates the number of cubes in a collection.
A kindergarten student organizes shape blocks by the various shapes of their faces.
A kindergarten student finds a way to sort cups by capacity.
A child identifies various shapes.
A child plays "hide-and-seek" with a group of bears to determine how many are missing from a larger group.
A child explains how he organizes a group of bears.
A kindergarten student uses blocks to make groups that are larger than, smaller than, and equal to the instructor's set.
A story about bears moving in and out of a cave provides an opportunity for math thinking.