Yesterday I shared the following thread on Twitter about an exchange between me and my daughter: This conversation with my daughter about multiplication caught me off guard today. My knee jerk reaction was befuddling to her, but hopefully she understood where I was coming from once I'd collected my thoughts. #ElemMathChat #tmwyk https://t.co/7qJRaKt2RY — Brian Bushart (@bstockus) November 18, 2021 The tl;dr version is that my daughter was introduced to something called “turtle head multiplication” – something I am well aware of and that makes me cringe – and I explained to her why I want h ..read more

I’m currently reading and blogging about Equity-Centered Trauma-Informed Education by Alex Shevrin Venet. Here are links if you’d like to check out previous posts in my series of reading summaries and reflections: Preparing to read the book Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Trauma Is a Lens, Not a Label “Equity-centered trauma-informed practices should be both proactive and universal.” (p. 55) These practices are not just about fixing problems in our schools. Rather, they are about creating “affirming, invigorating educational experience[s]” for all students. What would a school envir ..read more

A month ago I wrote a post called Just the Facts where I talked about the way my daughter has been practicing her multiplication facts with me at home. In case you don’t want to check out that post, here’s a quick recap of the way she’s practicing her facts: She answers as many multiplication flash cards as she can in one minute. She does two trials of one minute each. She counts the cards after each trial. I monitor and provide feedback as needed. After two trials, she graphs her higher score. Here’s how she was doing after five sessions back in late August: And here’s how she’s been doing ..read more

I’m currently reading and blogging about Equity-Centered Trauma-Informed Education by Alex Shevrin Venet. Here are links if you’d like to check out previous posts in my series of reading summaries and reflections: Preparing to read the book Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Shift 1 Adopt a Universal Approach While Chapters 1 and 2 focused on developing a common understanding of trauma and equity, the rest of the book is organized around four shifts in practice that are needed in order to move toward equity-centered trauma-informed education: Shift 1 Adopt a Universal Approach Shift 2 Rethink Your Role a ..read more

I’m currently reading and blogging about Equity-Centered Trauma-Informed Education by Alex Shevrin Venet. Here are links if you’d like to check out previous posts in my series of reading summaries and reflections: Preparing to read the book Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Defining Equity This chapter seeks to address two questions: How does inequity in school cause or worsen student trauma? Is school equitable for students who struggle with the impact of trauma in their lives? (Spoiler alert: It’s not) This chapter will also expand on Principle 1 from the Principles of Equity-Centered Trauma-Informed ..read more

I’ve been blogging recently about doing math with my daughter and trying out different centers from the newly released Illustrative Mathematics K-5 curriculum. You can read about our experiences with the two centers we’ve already tried: Can You Build It? and Number Puzzles: Addition and Subtraction. In this post, I’m going to share our experiences with a new center, Five in a Row: Addition and Subtraction. Similar to Number Puzzles, I like the flexibility of this center because it has multiple stages giving me lots of choice about what kinds of numbers we’re going to work with: Stage 1: Add 1 ..read more

As I mentioned in my previous post (Link), I’m starting to read Alex Shevrin Venet’s book Equity-Centered Trauma-Informed Education while also trying out new strategies to (hopefully!) get more out of my professional reading. These blog posts are not only designed to capture my learning from the book, but they’re also a chance to reflect on the process of trying out these reading strategies for the first time to find out what works for me as a reader. I already did the work of preparing to read the book, which is a whole process of its own. I’ve only done that process once now, but I feel like ..read more

After playing the Illustrative Math center Can You Build It? (Link) for a few days with my daughter, I decided to switch gears and introduce the Number Puzzles: Addition and Subtraction center (Link). I intentionally chose this center for two reasons: I like Open Middle problems (Link), and that’s what the puzzles in this center remind me of. I wanted to revisit two-digit addition before re-introducing three-digit addition. If you’re unfamiliar with the Number Puzzles center, here’s what it looks like: Number Puzzles: Addition and Subtraction, Stage 3, Puzzle 1 Each stage includes several pu ..read more

I recently asked on Twitter for advice about how other people engage with professional reading. I got a lot of great advice! To add to my good fortune, a few days later I came across this helpful article (Link) called “How to Remember What You Read” which included even more great advice. So, to put what I’m learning into practice, I’m going to apply it while I read my next book, Equity-Centered Trauma-Informed Education (Link) by Alex Shevrin Venet. Today I’m going to prepare to read the book which is something I’ll admit I’ve never done before. From the article I read: “A lot of success in r ..read more

In my previous post (Link), I shared how I’ve recently starting doing math with my daughter to help her get warmed up for the start of 4th grade. In that post I talked about how I’m using the centers from the Illustrative Mathematics K-5 curriculum (Link) to revisit and practice working with multiplication and arrays. In the six and half years I worked as a district math curriculum coordinator, a common concern I heard from 4th and 5th grade teachers is that their students don’t come in knowing their multiplication facts. I can attest that my daughter learned a lot about multiplication and div ..read more