Timed Drills and Flashcards

Yesterday, a friend called me asking about supporting her son through timed addition drills in his first grade class. Now, I have been a longtime proponent of timed drills, but the idea of this particular situation didn't sit well with me and I could not figure out why. My friend was exceedingly patient as I rambled on exploring the reasons behind my intuition long after I had answered her question. Still, it bugged me. Despite a nagging feeling that my inner protest comes partially from a dislike of this teacher's overall style, I believe that there are some solid reasons I would not drill a six year old in addition facts.

Jumping Number Line

A few weeks ago, a good friend of mine introduced me to an iPad/iPhone app called Motion Math Zoom.  This game is a highly visual, intuitive exploration of the number line.  With help from cute animal pictures, the player gets a good sense of scale when looking at pieces of the line, marked off by ones, tens, hundreds, thousands, thousandths, hundredths, and tenths.  The scale can be changed with a simple finger pinch.

I was impressed with this game, and a little sad that it didn't include fractions in fraction form. So one day, needing the kids to have something to do while I cooked dinner, I used masking tape to mark off a number line along the tiles on our kitchen/dining room floor.