Teach students to use stronger reading skills to make them more comfortable, and successful, in math. How to Use Reading Skills for Solving Math Word Problems Provide students with a reliable set of rules to follow for any word problem. Knowing exactly what to do when they see a word problem will make them more confident, and stronger, math students. Remind them that these are very similar to the rules they follow in English class so they know they can do it. Find a printable checklist of these steps here. Mark up the question. (a) Underline exactly what you are asked to find. This will ensure you don’t go astray midway through the problem. (b) Circle the numbers you will use to solve the problem. Circling will make them easier… Read More

By Sarah Vander Schaaff And so we have come to this, a headline: “Let’s stop trying to turn lemonade stands into MBA programs.” In the post in Fortune that followed that headline last July, Dan Mitchell says, essentially, “enough already.” Mitchell’s argument is more nuanced than the headline but his point is blunt: let the games of childhood serve their own purposes. The only thing to squeeze into an afternoon pitching refreshments to the neighbors is a bag of lemons, not lessons in profit margins. Mitchell refers to Michal Lemberger in Slate, who in her post, “Down with Lemonade Stands” debunks the idea that lemonade sales teach entrepreneurship because customers don’t actually compare prices and the quality of the lemonade…. Read More

By Sarah Vander Schaaff A few months ago, I decided that instead of buying workbooks for my kids to look at over the summer, I’d start collecting the homework they brought home and use it as a basis for a personalized binder.  I’d add new material, too, of course, and try to find things that appealed to their interests as well as their grade level and the one they’d be approaching. But you know, it was only last month that I took down the Halloween lights that had been iced into a bush in our front yard for most of the winter. I may, perhaps, have been too ambitious in my dream for the ideal summer “let’s not forget everything… Read More

By Sarah Vander Schaaff  A teacher. But like many things that go viral on the Internet, that important fact has gotten less attention. It didn’t take too much detective work to trace the photo back to its source, however, and last week I was able to speak on the phone with the photo’s creator, Alycia Zimmerman, a 3rd grade gifted and talented teacher at P.S. 33 Chelsea Prep in Manhattan. “Students tend to struggle with fractions,” Alycia said, when I asked her about the photo. “And some were playing with Legos during free-choice time on Fridays, and I’m watching them play and I’m thinking this would be really great to demonstrate fractions. So if this is a whole then….” The rest,… Read More