Math Lessons and Teaching Tips
This is a collection of articles on math education topics plus a collection of actual lessons for many elementary math topics. We hope these lessons and articles will help you a lot in your math teaching!
A good way to find the topic you're interested in is to use the SEARCH box below. Most likely you'll find something about most elementary and middle school math topics.
Jump to lessons and articles about:
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General Elementary Middle High School |
Place value Addition & subtraction Division Multiplication Fractions Decimals Geometry |
General
Some of these links to go to Homeschool Math Blog and Math Mammoth websites, written by Maria Miller.
- Four habits of highly effective math teaching
- How to help a student who is behind in math
- Growth mindset and the value of mistakes in math learning
- Should you use timed tests for math facts?
- Why are math word problems SO difficult for children?
Hint: it has to do with a "recipe" that many math lessons follow. - The do's and don'ts of teaching problem solving in math
Advice on how you can teach problem solving in elementary, middle, and high school math. - How to set up algebraic equations to match word problems
Students often have problems setting up an equation for a word problem in algebra. To do that, they need to see the RELATIONSHIP between the different quantities in the problem. This article explains some of those relationships. - From CLOSED math problems (with one answer) to OPEN ones
- Seven reasons behind math anxiety and how to prevent it
- Mental math "mathemagic" with Arthur Benjamin (video)
- Keeping math skills sharp in the summer
- Geometric vanish puzzles
- Science resources
Short reviews of the various science resources and curricula I have used with my own children.
Elementary
- Math Stars Worksheets — a comprehensive set of newsletters with excellent activities
- Problem Solving Decks — activities to get your kids thinking
- Learn to recognize numbers — a game for preschoolers
- Kindergarten math— an outline & recommendations
- Using a 100-bead abacus in elementary math
- Learn to recognize coins game
- Why are math word problems SO difficult for children?
- Using a calculator in elementary grades?
- Grades K-2 instructional resources — originally from the state of North Carolina
- Grades 3-5 instructional resources — originally from the state of North Carolina
Place Value Lessons
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Grade 1
- Teaching tens and ones
- Tens and ones practice
- Counting in groups of ten
- Skip-counting (0-100)
- Comparing (0-100)
- Cents and dimes
- Place Value - hundreds
- Comparing (0-1000)
- Place value - thousands
- Comparing thousands
- Rounding & estimating
- Rounding to the nearest 100
- Place value - big numbers
Grade 2
Grade 3
Grade 4
Add & Subtract Lessons
Multiplication Lessons
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Grade 3
- Multiplication concept as repeated addition
- Multiplication on a number line
- Multiplication is commutative
- Multiply by zero
- Multiplication word problems
- Order of operations
- Structured drill for multiplication tables
- Multiplying by whole tens & hundreds
- Distributive property
- Partial products - the easy way
- Partial products - video lesson
- Multiplication algorithm
- Multiplication Algorithm — Two-Digit Multiplier
- Scales problems - video lesson
- Estimation when multiplying
Grade 4
Division Lessons
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Grade 3
- Division as making groups
- Division/multiplication connection
- Division is repeated subtraction
- Zero in division
- Division that is not exact (remainder)
- Divisibility
- How to teach long division
- Zero in dividend
- Remainder & long division
- A two-digit divisor
- Repeated subtraction and long division
- Why long division works
- Review of division topics
- Divisibility within 0-1000
- Divisibility rules
- Prime factorization 1
- Prime factorization 2
- Sieve of Eratosthenes
Grade 4
Fraction Lessons
Why are fractions so difficult to learn?
- Understanding fractions
- A fractional part of group
- Mixed numbers
- Fractions to mixed numbers and vv.
- Adding like fractions
- Equivalent fractions
- Adding unlike fractions 1
- Adding unlike fractions 2: Finding the common denominator
- Adding mixed numbers
- Subtracting mixed numbers
- Subtracting mixed numbers 2
- Measuring in inches
- Comparing fractions
- Simplifying fractions
- Multiply fractions by whole numbers
- Multiply fractions by fractions
- Multiplication and area
- Simplify before multiplying
- Dividing fractions by whole numbers
- Dividing fractions: fitting the divisor
- Dividing fractions: reciprocal numbers
- Dividing fractions: using the shortcut
Decimals Lessons
Middle
- Math Stars Worksheets — a comprehensive set of newsletters with excellent activities
- Problem Solving Decks — activities to get your kids thinking
- Grades 6-8 instructional resources — originally from the state of North Carolina
- Order of operations/PEMDAS
- Estimation methods
- Negative or zero exponents
- Number to zero power is one - 2 proofs
- How to teach proportions
- Percent - the basic concept
- Percentage of a number using mental math
- How to calculate percentages of numbers
- How to calculate percentages
- Basics of percent of change
- How to teach integers
- Hands-on with pi
- Fibonacci numbers and the golden section
- Sine in a right triangle
- Square roots without a calculator?
- Rational numbers & converting repeating decimals into fractions
- Where do you need math, square roots, or algebra in real life?
- Where do you need exponents in everyday life?
- Balance illustrates equation solving
Geometry Lessons
High School
- Why high school geometry is difficult
- Help with high school geometry
- What is proof?
- Two-column proof vs. paragraph proof
- Proving is a process - logarithm problem
- High school indicators
- Fascinating irrational numbers
- Proof that square root of 2 is irrational
- Rational numbers are countable
- How does calculator find values of sine?
- Fibonacci numbers and the golden section
- Why does the square root algorithm work?
