Are you overwhelmed by all the choices? The MCMI team has pulled together a list of free instructional resources that are focused on supporting students and families during distance learning. Some things we considered:
- Open-ended and engaging
- Longer, student-driven lessons
- Interesting mathematics that focuses on core ideas
- Opportunities for feedback and/or support through the resource, family or peer interaction.
Bridges: Home Learning Resources (K–5)
An evolving collection of K–5 activities students can do independently or with the support of families or educators. Includes activity of the day, shorter and longer tasks, a collection of on-line games, and the virtual manipulatives from the Math Learning Center.
Connected Mathematics: CMP at Home (6–8)
An evolving set of resources for teachers and families to support students that are continuing their learning at home. You will find games, videos, and lessons that are easy to implement at home with families.
Counting Collections Routine (K–5)
This is an excellent routine to do at home. Count a collection of ______? Or How many ______ are there? This routine supports students’ development of quantity, number, magnitude, and measurement. Older students might develop ways to efficiently count large quantities (e.g., grains of rice in a bag) or show a quantity. What does _______ look like?
This is an evolving collection of digital activities and interactives that help students learn math and learn to love math. These activities can be done asynchronously or synchronously, can connect students to the reasoning of others, and provide an opportunity for feedback. Digital activities can be accessed via a phone as well as a computer.
This is a collection of short videos that challenge students to reason about quantity and measurements. Different ages will access and engage in different ways but always stimulate highly engaging mathematics conversations.
Inside Mathematics: Problems of the Month (K–12)
This is a collection of leveled open-ended problem sets that could be used to engage students in some rich problem solving. Students start with level A and work through as many levels as they can. Ask students to share their solution to one of the levels.
Investigations: Math at Home (K–5)
An evolving collection of K–5 activities families can do at home and access to games that can be done on-line and off-line. Resources in English and Spanish.
Khan Academy offers practice exercises, instructional videos, and a personalized learning dashboard that empower learners to study at their own pace in and outside of the classroom.
Math Trailblazers: Longer, Student-Driven Assignments (K–5)
The authors are in the process of curating a collection of longer, student-driven assignments and games that could be done independently or as a family. For example: How many steps does____walk in an hour? Which paper towel holds more water?
NCTM: Problems of the Week (3–12)
This collection of engaging and interesting open-ended problems is an awesome resource for those longer student-driven thought-provoking tasks. Students at different levels can solve the same problem in different ways.
Open Middle problems have a “closed beginning” meaning that they all start with the same initial problem, a “closed end” meaning that they all end with the same answer, and an “open middle” meaning that there are multiple ways to approach and ultimately solve the problem.
There are several educators creating and organizing three-act tasks. Graham Fletcher has pulled together links to many of these K–12 educators. Be sure to scroll to the bottom of the page. Students get to know the problem through an image or video. After students determine and gather the information needed to mathematize the situation, students work to respond. The closure is a video of the situation or problem resolving, so students can check their response. Here is an NCTM article about Three-Act Tasks as well. One educator used a google form to deliver and collect student ideas.
YouCubed at Home Newsletter (K–12)
A weekly newsletter of YouCubed resources modified or highlighted to continue math exploration at home. There are some fun videos, games, and interesting open-ended tasks.