The Stenhouse Blog

Highlighting Ideas from Understanding the Math We Teach and How to Teach It (K-8) by Marian Small.

Highlighting Ideas from Understanding the Math We Teach and How to Teach It (K-8) by Marian Small.

Highlighting Ideas from How Many?: A Counting Book and Teachers’ Guide by Christopher Danielson

Highlighting Ideas from Number Sense Routines: Building Numerical Literacy Every Day in Grades K-3 by Jessica Shumway

Highlighting Ideas from Necessary Conditions: Teaching Secondary Math with Academic Safety, Quality Tasks, and Effective Facilitation by Geoff Krall.

Highlighting Ideas from Early Childhood Math Routines by Antonia Cameron.

“WARNING: Your students may not leave your mathematics classroom when the bell rings if you start using Open Middle tasks." —Sara Vanderwerf

The problems and strategies in Open Middle Math by Robert Kaplinsky gives middle and high school teachers the guidance and materials not only engage students in math class, but get them excited to dig into a problem as if on a quest, and enthusiastically share discoveries with their peers. Matt Larson wrote, "Not only will your students experience mathematics in more authentic ways, but your teaching will be simultaneously energized as your classroom becomes a motivating space where students meet and enjoy the challenge of really doing mathematics.” Find out what else folks are saying about Open Middle Math.

In Deanna Pecaski McLennan’s kindergarten classroom, math isn’t limited to a specific block of time. It’s built into the environment and inseparable from everything her young students do.

All of the math in author Deanna Pecaski McLennan's instruction is infused with a sense of exploration, wonder, and joy. And in her new book, Joyful Math,  she shows us how to do the same by creating invitations for young children to engage with math ideas through art, literacy, and outdoor play. She focuses on building spaces in early childhood classrooms where children see themselves as mathematical thinkers with valuable ideas from the very start. 

Deanna Pecaski McLennan, Ph.D., is a full-day kindergarten teacher based in Ontario, Canada and the author of the new book Joyful Math: Invitations to Play and Explore in the Early Childhood Classroom  and was recently awarded the 2020 Prime Minister Award for Teaching Excellence in STEM.

As teachers and students engage in Choral Counting together, they often get quite intrigued by what they are seeing in the numbers and begin to wonder which patterns might arise, where regularities might repeat, and why certain things are happening. The ongoing thinking and conversations propel teachers to engage students in this activity over and over, finding new ways to adapt and innovate based on what students are exploring.