Tag Archives: Dynamic Number

Exploring Multiples on a Dynamic Number Grid

What would it take to build a better number grid for young learners? A typical number grid contains 10 columns with the numbers progressing from 1-10, 11-20, 21-30 and so on, from row to row. We decided to upend this tradition and make a dynamic number grid with Web Sketchpad that allows students to … Continue Reading ››

Make Your Own Fractions

In my very first Sine of the Times blog post from January 2012, I wrote about the paucity of fractions that young learners typically encounter in their math classes. While they might construct visual representations of 1/2, 2/3, and 8/12, it's unlikely they'll create models of 7/31, 36/19, or 5/101. That's a shame because without … Continue Reading ››

Stars, Polygons, and Multiples

I've always found my collaborations with teachers to be a great inspiration for curriculum development, and that was especially true of my work with Wendy Lovetro, an elementary-school teacher in Brooklyn, NY. Wendy coordinated an after-school math club at her school, and I used the setting as an opportunity to develop and field test Sketchpad activities for the … Continue Reading ››

Raz’s Magic Multiplying Machine

Here is a question you don't hear very often: What does it feel like to experience multiplication in our bodies? It's a strange question because our typical exposure to multiplication is numerical. I give you two numbers—say, 3 and 5—and you tell me their product, 15. But multiplication need need not be so static and concrete. Back … Continue Reading ››

Decomposing Number Challenges

The mental arithmetic game 'Make 20' begins with students sitting in a circle. The teacher picks a student to call out a random number between 0 and 20. Students raise their hands, and whoever is chosen by the teacher must say what number, when added to the first, makes 20. The game continues in this manner, with students picking random … Continue Reading ››

Adding and Subtracting on a Dynamic Number Chart

Below (and here) is a collection of four interactive number charts that we first introduced in our NSF-funded Dynamic Number project. Start by asking students to press the four directional arrows and to explore what they do. The right arrow, for example, moves the shaded square to the right, and wraps the square to the next row up … Continue Reading ››

A Compendium of Elementary Web Sketchpad Activities

Below is a complete list of all the interactive elementary-themed activities we've offered on our Sine of the Times blog. Most of these activities grew out of the work that we did during our NSF-funded Dynamic Number project. The list includes links to our original blog posts as well as links that take you directly … Continue Reading ››

Understanding Fraction Multiplication

Last week, Scott and I attended a fraction symposium at NYU, and it made me realize how long it's been since I've written about our Sketchpad work with fractions. Below is a Web Sketchpad model for displaying and solving fraction multiplication problems. Representing fraction multiplication with an area model is a common approach, but it's challenging to … Continue Reading ››

Bunny Times Brings Conceptual Understanding to Multiplication

Four years ago, my colleague Scott Steketee and I set out to develop an interactive game to help students develop strategies for thinking about and solving multiplication problems. As we examined the existing apps on the market, we discovered that most focused on the drill aspect of learning one's multiplication facts. We set our goals higher. We … Continue Reading ››

Zooming Integers: Magnifying the Number Line

In my prior post, I presented a "zooming" number line model that allowed students to estimate the location of a point along a number line and then repeatedly magnify that portion of the number line to obtain ever-finer estimates, accurate to tenths, hundredths, thousandths, and beyond.

In a sense I got ahead of myself because I … Continue Reading ››