Finding the Difference

What does the term "difference" mean? In math, it is defined as finding the distance between two numbers. During the explore period, students have been comparing items such as...numbers of children in their family and handfuls of beans. Students have been thinking a great deal about relationships between numbers without relying on memorized procedures. Too often, students memorize procedures that they don't understand. When this happens, many students just try to follow the steps and seem to forget about number relationships. They forget to estimate, double check, or THINK about the situation. Instead, in the math workshop, I encourage children to develop and use their OWN strategies for solving problems. When they take ownership of their thinking, this is when the learning and understanding of the concept takes place. In this video clip, you will see a student sharing his strategy for "finding the difference". This strategy is called the "open number line" and it helps students visualize what it looks like to find the distance between two numbers. It is also great for understanding number sense, landmark numbers, and identifying number patterns. You can also stop by our standards based math bulletin board to view more strategies and students at work!