Mathematics

There are a lot of myths surrounding math and this week I want to dispel them and instill the truths about doing math. Math shouldn't be the dreaded and feared subject. If you maintain a positive attitude for math, you will be surprised and how far that will take you. Try the True/False test that might just change your own attitude about math.

My other favorite advice to offer students is to learn from your mistakes. Sometimes, the most powerful learning stems from making a mistake. Check out how to learn from you mistakes or errors in math.

If you have responsibilities for teaching the Common Core Math Standards (CCS), you might want to consider share a lesson. This site offers many (over 250,000)  teacher created lessons and activities that are aligned with the CCS. Before you re-create the wheel, be sure to see what others have to share.

See also:  the 101 on Common Core Math

Here are three helpful hints if you are trying to help somebody to round numbers:

1.  When the first digit dropped is less than 5, do not change the preceding digit.   E.g., 2.324 rounded off to the nearest hundredth is 2.32.

2.  When the first digit dropped is greater than 5, or 5 followed by one or more non-zero digits, increase the preceding digit by one.
E.g., 2.316 and 2.3151 are both 2.32 when rounded off to the nearest hundredth.

3.  When the first digit dropped is 5 and there are no digits following or the digits following are zeros, make the preceding digit even (i.e. round off to the nearest even digit).  E.g., 2.315 and 2.325 are both 2.32 when rounded off to the nearest hundredth.

Note: The rationale for the third rule is that approximately half of the time the number will be rounded up and the other half of the time it will be rounded down.

See the full article and practice worksheets.

A square and a rectangle are both polygons but are they both rectangles too? Polygons 101 provides you what you need to know about polygons and it will also answer the question for you. You'll find that the concept of polygons will appear as early as kindergarten and right on through to graduate school. The concepts addressed in Polygons 101 are also what you need to know for many of the standardized tests, SATs and GRE's

Have the students already mastered the skills they are to learn in kindergarten? According to this study, much of the math being taught in kindergarten is the math the kindergarten students already know. The study reports that teachers spend most classroom time -- typically 13 days per month -- on the skills the students had already mastered. Full story.

See also: Kindergarten Math

Let's take time this Memorial Day to remember what it's all about. Although it may be the unofficial start to summer, Memorial Day is a time to reflect, remember and be forever grateful to all of those individuals who lost their lives in the United States Armed Forces.  Read more about Memorial Day from Washington DC guide Rachel Cooper to find out everything you should know about Memorial Day 2013.

Learning to count is much more difficult than one would think. Of course, we all learned to count and it's doubtful that any of actually remember what that process was really all about because it was so long ago.  Once the principles of counting are fully understood, there are a wealth of resources here to take the learner to the next step in counting:

• Hundred's Chart Worksheets
• Numberlines Focusing on Counting up to 10
• What Comes Before and What Comes After Worksheets
• Ordinal Number Worksheets
• Counting by 10's
• Greater or Less than 20

These are just a few worksheets and printables to help with counting. Remember, use concrete manipulatives and one to one finger pointing (touching) when teaching young learners to count.

In the Common Core Standards, kindergarten learners are to count to 100 by ones and by tens. This is a concept that often takes longer than a year to learn.  In the Common Core, it's called Counting and Cardinality. Cardinality refers to the ability of recognizing that four things is represented by the number 4 or that the last number in a set refers to the actual amount.  To support the kindergarten learner, many concrete experiences are needed. This week, I focused on how to support teaching counting to kindergarten learners in order to support the Common Core Standards in Kindergarten.

Number fluency at an early age refers to a full understanding of the principles of counting. Knowing everthing that a number represents. For instance, let's take six. It means know that 6 means 6 of something that's it's less than any number greater than 6 and more than every number less than 6. It means knowing that in a line up or on a number, there is a 6th place. It's knowing that it can refer to 6 concrete items (buttons, cars, coins etc.) or 6 abstract items (6 breaths, 6 thoughts, 6 ideas etc.) It's knowing where 6 is placed on a number line. Research has indicated that children who lack number fluency in the first grade tended to lag by the 7th grade, were behind their peers and lacked the basic math skills required to function as an adult. More on this story.

Are you one of many individuals taking the SATs in June? If so, be sure to register by the May 22 deadline. The SAT math is a 70 minute math test consisting of 44 multiple choice and 10 open response type questions. Be sure to check out the College Board for practice items to prepare yourself for the test.