Karyn's Blog

Power Packs – Building Number Sense

June 16, 2020 Karyn Comments 0 Comment

We know that parent involvement in their child’s education can have a significant impact on academic success. Our current situation has helped reinforce the role parents and caregivers have as active participants in the education of their children.

But there have been a lot of changes in mathematics curriculum and pedagogy in recent years and a lot of parents don’t feel as prepared as they’d like to be when it comes to helping their child in math. That’s why we created our Power Pack: Building Number Sense series, a set of dice games that families can play to reinforce important number skills.

The power of these Power Packs comes in the integration of strategies and tools that parents use as they play the games with their children. Helping parents understand these tools and strategies has become even more important to better facilitate remote learning. With that in mind, I created short instructional videos of each of the tools and strategies included in the Power Packs because it’s important that parents understand why we are teaching the way we are. These videos help underscore the importance of focusing on number sense when children are learning mathematics.

Power Packs and Math Homework

December 15, 2017 Karyn Comments 0 Comment

Everyone loves to play games. They’re engaging, motivating, and fun. And from an educational perspective, they can be a powerful learning tool. Here’s what games can do:

reinforce skills learned in the classroom
develop mental math skills
encourage strategic thinking
foster mathematical communication
build confidence
engage parents

But one of the best things about games is that they offer meaningful practice in a way where kids actually want to do math. That’s because games, by their very nature, are fun. It’s not too hard to entice a child to play a game. And because of that, games offer important practice in a way that worksheets can’t.

Power Packs: Building Number Sense in Grades 4/5

February 13, 2017 Karyn Comments 0 Comment

I’m excited to share with you that our Building Number Sense in Grades 4-5 Power Pack is now available. All of our Power Packs are filled with games that teach parents strategies and tools to help their children build strong math skills.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, there have been a lot of changes in mathematics curriculum and pedagogy in recent years and a lot of parents don’t feel as prepared as they’d like to be when it comes to helping their child in math. The power of these Power Packs comes in the integration of strategies and tools that parents use as they play the games with their children. While playing the games, not only are parents learning about the new standards, they’re also gaining strategies they can use to help their child in math.

The strategies and tools in our 4/5 Power Pack are:

Partial Products Multiplication
Partial Quotients Division
Distributive Property for single- and multi-digit multiplication
Front End Estimation
Fraction Bars
Multiplying Fractions on a Number Line
Rounding
Order of Operations
Standard Algorithms for addition, subtraction, multiplication, division
Multiplication Strategies for Multiples of 10