The Importance of Math Discourse

Each week, our math lessons are infused with math talk- kids buddy up to talk out strategies for solving math problems and work to solve them together in a variety of ways- students do this in small math groups, during whole groups lessons and during center time as well.

Today students worked together to solve some challenging problems with "torn shapes"- rectangles and rectilinear figures with pieces missing where students were asked to figure out the area of the whole shape. They did an excellent job collaborating and problem solving!

Math Discourse helps students to learn new strategies and think of math in new ways and improves their ability to explain their thinking. This is crucial to having a deeper understanding of mathematics!

You can see the problem they were working to solve here. Consider working together over winter break to solve some problems from the nRich website with your child!