Similar to the K-2 and grades 3-5 big math ideas series, this year we offered a grades 6-9 series. For a variety of reasons, we were only able to hold one session in April. We focused on the big idea of computational fluency.

Each teacher received the book Making Number Talks Matter by Cathy Humphreys and Ruth Parker. The focus of number talks is to develop computational fluency through practice of and discussion of mental math strategies for number operations.

Another focus of our session was inclusive instructional routines that develop number sense, computational fluency and curricular competencies such as reasoning.

District posters are available for routines such as Splat, Number Talks, and Which One Doesn’t Belong. They can be found in English and French on this blog on the top of the site. An example of one of these posters is:

At grades 6-9, developing and extending computational fluency with whole numbers across all four operations is an essential, foundational component of our BC mathematics curriculum. At this grade range, students are also connecting and transferring many of these strategies to operations with decimal numbers, integers and fractions.

Looking forward to next year, it is our hope to have more opportunities for teachers to bridge teaching and learning experiences from elementary to secondary.

~Janice