I haven’t been doing very well with my blogging this year.  In fact my last published post was in January, and I started this one in January as well.  I’ve been trying lots of new things this year, but instead of them all being tech based, lots of them involve hands on pencil and paper [...]

My class just started using a website for math practice called Ten Marks.  You can find it at http://tenmarks.com.  It was mentioned by several people in the 4thchat on Twitter last Monday.  I had looked at this website before, but I hadn’t really moved past the home page.  That was a mistake, because this website [...]

Last week I wrote about teaching math through small group instruction. A few people expressed an interest in learning more about the things we do in our classroom. As I worked with my groups this past week, I decided to describe some of the details of how I manage the small groups. I hope you’ll [...]

Whiteboards are great for practice. The kids enjoy using them, and it makes it easy to see their work. Last week I experienced another one of those precious moments of true teacher satisfaction.  I was sitting at the front of the classroom with a group of seven students, while the rest of class was scattered [...]

There are those moments in the classroom, when the room is filled with the satisfying hum of kids working and engaged in learning.  Those are the magic moments, that make everything else worthwhile.  I treasure them when they happen.  I have experienced a few of those precious moments in the past two weeks.  It happened when [...]

There have been some big changes in my school district this year.  One of these changes,  is an early dismissal every Wednesday.  During the past few years, we have had an early dismissal once or twice a month for professional development.  It was sometimes hard to remember the schedule, but it concerns me that we are giving up [...]