Customer Reviews

Teaching Student-Centered Mathematics: Grades K-3

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3 star:		(1)
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If I had to teach Math to young kids on a desert island and could only take one book, this would be the one! John Van de Walle had previously written a college level textbook resource for teaching Math at the Elementary and Middle School levels. It was comprehensive, but way too dense to be teacher friendly.

Someone had a great idea to separate the text into grade level bands and make it more user friendly. Co-written with LouAnn Lovin, the authors introduce the Big Ideas you need to teach to, so that young kids can construct meaning and actually make sense of mathematics. They also pack plenty of activity ideas into the book to help you move your students toward becoming mathematically fluent. A thumbnail guide to the blackline masters used throughout the text is included in an appendix. The full size masters are available gratis online. Get this book!

I really like this book as a source for conceptual Math activities. I recommend purchasing only 1 either K-2, 3-5, depending on which you think you would use more. They overlap alot.

I am so glad I bought this book. I have been teaching for over 10 years, but I always felt something was missing from my math lessons. This book fills in the gaps.

It explains how kids learn math and the connections that need to be made from one concept to the next. It also has assessments to help determine each student's level of understanding and how they are solving problems.

I can't wait to start trying these activities in the fall. A must-have book for all K-3 teachers!

Easy to read and understand. Complete math center ideas and teaching strategies. Great easy ideas for differentiation.

This book provides a great foundation for math skills grades K-3. I consult this resource for nearly every math lesson I teach. This book supplements what other textbooks take for granted or leave out. I highly recommend this book!

If you're going back and forth about getting this book--- get it. You won't be disappointed. It has SO much useful information I could replace our whole math curriculum and use this instead. The beginning of the book tells you how to set up a problem-based classroom. When I first started learning how this type of constructivist approach, I always wished that someone would just spell it out for me. How do I do a good job creating a problem-based lesson? It all seemed so fuzzy! This book does that. He explains how to be successful at using 1 big problem as a catalyst to your math instruction that day or week.

The book is then broken up into "big idea" topics and tons of games, activities, and background knowledge are given about developing place value, addition, subtraction, multiplication....

Being the nerd I am, I have carried this book around my school, giddy with excitement as I showed other teachers in my building page after page. Can you tell I just love this book?!

So I guess I will be the first to knock this book. I am not saying it isn't good because it is pretty awesome. It has some great theory and can help you get a really deep understanding of how kids come to understand math. The reason I say it is just okay is that to me it is more of a research book not a jump in and do this book which feels like the only thing I have time for at the moment. It has a limited number of activities that span all ranges of K-3 math so when I want to work on counting there is but 1 activity leaving me to create more reasons for counting.
I have heard he supplies a lot of blakcline masters on line, but honestly have not found the time to look at the moment.

I have found that if you are looking for a multitude of activities at your fingertips I would look into Kathy Richardson's series - Developing Number Concepts, Addition and Subtraction, Multiplication and Division. I feel that they have similar depth to this book, but are much more teacher friendly.

This book is an excellent resource for those teaching mathematics to students in the primary grades. The authors provide rationale for concepts taught, games to be played, and templates of materials needed. There is also a website to get additional resources from. My students have enjoyed the games and I have enjoyed using it.

This is absolutely the best book I have read and used for teaching "hands-on" math activities in the classroom. Using the five and ten frame has been a great asset to my students. I highly recommend this book to any K-3 teacher who is teaching Math!

This book is a wonderful resource for teachers and those working in professional development. It brings together some of the best work in mathematics by authors and researchers. I am currently using it for my core resource in a 16 hour professional development workshop in differentiation in mathematics. It provides an excellent framework for my class as well as problem solving activities for students. I'm using the student activities with the teachers to help them understand problem solving with young children, understand the developmental math concepts, and think about ways to differentiation for children. I highly recommend this book!