What makes a powerful, rigorous, and relevant math station activity?
1. Identify the content standard.
One of the activities that uses building blocks to concretely explore a concept is the Math Common Core State Standard from fourth grade, MCC4.OA.1a: Use the four operations with whole numbers to solve problems.…
Fred Haise: I know why my numbers were wrong. I only figured it for two people.
Jack Swigert: Maybe I should just hold my breath.
-from the movie, “Apollo 13”
“We’ve made our Whole-Group Mini-Lesson on Fridays about problem solving. Word problems, especially multi-step ones, are really challenging for our students.…
“Children need models more than they need critics.” -Joseph Joubert
It’s the beginning of a new school year. The students are ready to begin working on one of the most exciting mathematical concepts they’ll encounter this year…drum roll, please…WORD PROBLEMS! And, another drum roll, please…as your grade level increases, so do the number of steps in the word problems.…
