Math is fun!

Link example

rachelcotton — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 19:51:38 +0000

I found this really cool website on deductive reasoning.

Does “help” really hurt students?

rachelcotton — Wed, 20 Apr 2011 18:04:40 +0000

Very interesting article in the New York Times. Talks about how we learn best, is it best to have lots of help beforehand, or do we learn better having to figure more out on our own? Read it and let me know what you think!

Welcome to Math for Elementary Teachers!

rachelcotton — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 20:16:55 +0000

Hope you enjoyed your first class for MathET today! It’s going to be a fun semester and hopefully you will learn to like math a little more than you do right now! My goal is to show you that you can enjoy math, not just endure it!

Check out the blogs that are under the general info tab of Web 2.0 – lots of great resources!

Significant Figures calculator

rachelcotton — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 15:41:52 +0000

Last Gateway Reminder

rachelcotton — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 15:41:26 +0000

We have our last gateway exam this Wednesday – it is on area & perimeter only, since we have not had a chance to discuss volume yet. If you do not pass it the first time, you will need to take it again after class. That way you will still have one last chance before our final on the 4th.

Math at dinner

rachelcotton — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 11:41:44 +0000

So we have friends in town who have an 8 year old and 4 year old. At dinner last night, 4 kids were doing math! They kept asking each other what 5 + 5 makes, 6 + 6 makes, etc. These are 4 kids, ages 3 1/2, 4, 6 & 8 – it was hilarious! For at least 10 minutes this went on, with “bonus questions” and everything.
What I loved the most was when the 8 year old asked her bonus question of 16 + 16. She was the only one who could answer it (out of the kids, not adults!), but she even had an explanation. “so you add 6 + 6 which is 12 and you regroup the 1 with the tens and add those together to get 30 + 2 = 32″ – sound familiar???

Decimal Worksheets

rachelcotton — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 00:29:19 +0000

Kids & Money

rachelcotton — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 01:02:49 +0000

So, a friend of mine who has a little girl who is almost 6 had a huge math moment this weekend. They were going to garage sales and she decided to give her daughter $3 of her own to spend so that she wouldn’t be harassed to buy something at every place. She told her daughter that she had $3 to spend on anything she wanted, but when the money was gone she was done. At the first place, her daughter found a tea set for $3, but hesitated to buy it because then all of her money would be gone. She said to her mom, “I can’t really find anything else that is $3. It never occurred to my friend that her daughter would think that she had to spend it all at once. So she explained it to her that she could get one item for $3, or 3 items for $1 each or maybe 2 items that were $1 and $2. She said her daughter lit up with all of those possibilities and ended up get three different things for $1 each. What was originally just a simple way for a mom to get to go to garage sales without being hassled turned in to a huge lesson in math. She got subtraction and even some division in – I loved it~!

Blog Tags

rachelcotton — Thu, 27 May 2010 02:48:09 +0000

Denise was asking about the “tags” that are required as part of your blog. A tag is a way for someone to be directed to your blog when they are searching the internet. So for example, if your blog is about the discussion we had on Venn Diagrams, you would add “venn diagram” as a tag on your blog. You do this by simply typing “venn diagrams” under the Post Tags space when you are creating a new post in your blog.

You can go back into the blog posts you have already created and edit them to add tags in as well!

Hopefully that answers some questions!

End of unit 1

rachelcotton — Thu, 27 May 2010 02:44:10 +0000

Well – we finished unit 1 tonight and so far I feel pretty good! I think the class is filled with lots of interesting people and ideas. Thank you Kaitlin for suggesting an ice-breaker tonight – that is definitely something I will incorporate into my first class meeting from now on!

We’ve had 3 student presenters and they have all been unique, which is great! It’s always nerve-wracking to get up in front of a group of people and so far all 3 have done a great job.

I am anxious to see the results of the first tests – that always helps to see how well the material is being absorbed.