The Brick Math FREE Lesson of the Month for August 2023, "Absolute Value," is from our brand-new book, Pre-Algebra Using LEGO® Bricks. It's a great way to demonstrate the meaning of absolute value when you begin to introduce the concept. To get the August 2023 Brick Math Lesson of the Month, "Absolute Value," plus a new lesson each month, click here. Each Lesson of the Month includes the Teacher Lesson Guide as well as the Student Workbook pages that correspond to the lesson. The lesson demonstrates absolute value using a number line built from bricks. Each stud represents a number, with a blue 1x1 brick in the center of the line to represent zero. Green bricks represent positive values on the number line, and red bricks represent negative values. The lesson teaches the vocabulary of absolute value, showing the "integer value" of numbers. Once students understand the concept of absolute value, they can move on to performing arithmetic operations with them. Brick Math is a K-8 math curriculum that uses LEGO® bricks to model 13 different math subjects: Counting, Addition, Subtraction, Multiplication, Division, Basic Fractions, Basic Measurement, Fraction Multiplication, Fraction Division, Advanced Measurement and Geometry, Decimals, Data and Statistics, and Pre-Algebra. Data and Statistics and Pre-Algebra expand the Brick Math curriculum to include grades 7 - 8. Brick Math works in many applications: for homeschooling, math intervention, enrichment, and as a whole-school program. Materials are simple and affordable. If you are a math teacher or a parent with a student at home who is learning K-8th grade math, check brickmath.com. The website includes videos for both teacher training and direct instruction of students. You can learn more about how Brick Math improves students' math test scores and hear what people who are using Brick Math have to say about the program.
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Brick Math is proud to announce our brand-new 7th - 8th grade content with two new subjects added to the curriculum: Pre-Algebra and Data and Statistics. As with all the Brick Math curriculum, the content is taught by modeling the math with LEGO® or LEGO®-compatible bricks, giving students a hands-on experience that helps them gain deep understanding of the mathematical concepts. Each subject has a Teacher Edition that guides the teacher through the step-by-step lessons as well as a Student Edition that is a workbook for students to draw their brick models and includes student assessments for every chapter. The Brick Math brick set works for these new subjects, too. The new content extends Brick Math to a complete K - 8 curriculum solution for schools as well as for homeschooling. Brick Math is ideally suited for students who haven’t been able to learn the concepts through more traditional methods. In Pre-Algebra, students are introduced to topics that help them prepare for high school math. These include integers, fractions, square roots, step equations, linear equations, and decimals. Students learn how to solve basic equations using variables. Modeling with bricks, students engage in problem-solving activities that expand their knowledge of: • absolute value and positive/negative numbers • exponents, including negative exponents and multiplicative inverse • rules of integers • algebraic expressions • equations and inequalities • slope In Data and Statistics, students learn the basics of representing and interpreting data with line plots, bar graphs, histograms, and box plots. They learn how to measure central tendency through mean, median, mode, and range. Then students move on to learn about coordinates, line graphs, and scatter plots. Finally, they learn how to graph and calculate the slope of a line. The final chapter is an introduction to both theoretical and experimental probability. Modeling with bricks, students engage in problem-solving activities that expand their knowledge of: • visual models and graphs of data sets • measures of central tendency • coordinate grids • slope • theoretical and experimental probability Both books progress through these topics in modules, moving from more basic to more complex in each chapter. Most students learn these Pre-Algebra and Data and Statistics topics in grades 7 - 8. We have had so many requests to extend the Brick Math program through eighth grade, and it’s finally here! We’re excited to share the new Brick Math content with you. Brick Math is a K-8 math curriculum that uses LEGO® bricks to model 13 different math subjects:
Counting, Addition, Subtraction, Multiplication, Division, Basic Fractions, Basic Measurement, Fraction Multiplication, Fraction Division, Advanced Measurement and Geometry, Decimals, Data and Statistics, and Pre-Algebra. Brick Math works in many applications: for homeschooling, math intervention, enrichment, and as a whole-school program. Materials are simple and affordable. If you are a math teacher or a parent with a student at home who is learning K-8th grade math, check brickmath.com. The website includes videos for both teacher training and direct instruction of students. You can learn more about how Brick Math improves students' math test scores and hear what people who are using Brick Math have to say about the program. The July 2023 Brick Math Lesson of the Month comes from Multiplication Using LEGO® Bricks, one of the best-selling titles in the Brick Math Series. The lesson teaches students about arrays, and shows how to model multiplication with bricks that create arrays. It's a great way to reinforce multiplication while adding the new vocabulary of arrays and area. To get the July 2023 Brick Math Lesson of the Month, "Multiplication with Array Models," plus a new lesson each month, click here. Each Lesson of the Month includes the Teacher Lesson Guide as well as the Student Workbook pages that correspond to the lesson. In this lesson, students learn about arrays and the importance of knowing the orientation of an array. Then they learn to build multiplication sentences based on the array's configuration. These exercises really help students understand the concepts behind one-digit multiplication. Bricks are the perfect tools to model arrays. Modeling with bricks helps students understand what an array is and how it relates to multiplication. The study of mathematics is a building process (pun intended!) that relies on students understanding foundational math before moving on to more complex ideas. Brick Math is a K-6 math curriculum that uses LEGO® bricks to model 11 different math subjects: Counting, Addition, Subtraction, Multiplication, Division, Basic Fractions, Basic Measurement, Fraction Multiplication, Fraction Division, Advanced Measurement and Geometry, and Decimals. This year, the program will expand to include grades 6 - 8, with the additional subjects Data and Statistics, Pre-Algebra, and Ratios and Proportions. Brick Math works in many applications: for homeschooling, math intervention, enrichment, and as a whole-school program. Materials are simple and affordable. If you are a math teacher or a parent with a student at home who is learning K-8th grade math, check brickmath.com. The website includes videos for both teacher training and direct instruction of students. You can learn more about how Brick Math improves students' math test scores and hear what people who are using Brick Math have to say about the program.
The June 2023 Brick Math Lesson of the Month shows how to teach early learners the very basics of understanding square numbers. It's part of the Counting and Cardinality Using LEGO® Bricks curriculum. To get the June 2023 Brick Math Lesson of the Month, "Square Number Concepts," plus a new lesson each month, click here. Each Lesson of the Month includes the Teacher Lesson Guide as well as the Student Workbook pages that correspond to the lesson. In the lesson, students build 2-stud, 4-stud, and 9-stud configurations with bricks. They are encouraged to see that 4-stud and 9-studs can be modeled in the shape of a square, and that there are 2 and 3 studs on each side of the square. In this way, the concept of square numbers is introduced, and will be returned to later when students learn multiplication. The importance of building skills in math over time can't be stressed enough. This lesson is a great example of how to start from the earliest years, using mathematical terminology to teach concepts young students can grasp. Incorporating bricks to make the lesson visual helps students build math knowledge that will last a lifetime. Brick Math is a K-6 math curriculum that uses LEGO® bricks to model 11 different math subjects: Counting, Addition, Subtraction, Multiplication, Division, Basic Fractions, Basic Measurement, Fraction Multiplication, Fraction Division, Advanced Measurement and Geometry, and Decimals. This year, the program will expand to include grades 6 - 8, with the additional subjects Data and Statistics, Pre-Algebra, and Ratios and Proportions. Brick Math works in many applications: for homeschooling, math intervention, enrichment, and as a whole-school program. Materials are simple and affordable. If you are a math teacher or a parent with a student at home who is learning K-8th grade math, check brickmath.com. The website includes videos for both teacher training and direct instruction of students. You can learn more about how Brick Math improves students' math test scores and hear what people who are using Brick Math have to say about the program. "April showers bring May flowers." April's Lesson of the Month on Decomposing Numbers in Addition brings May's Lesson of the Month on...Decomposing Numbers in Subtraction! To get the May 2023 Brick Math Lesson of the Month, "Decomposing Numbers / Place Value," plus a new lesson each month, click here. Each Lesson of the Month includes the Teacher Lesson Guide as well as the Student Workbook pages that correspond to the lesson. This lesson, from Brick Math's Subtraction Using LEGO® Bricks, models decomposing one ten into ten ones for the purpose of solving a subtraction problem. It also helps students understand the concept of place value, clearly showing bricks that represent both the tens and the ones places. It's a great way to explain what it actually means to subtract 8 from 22, which can be a difficult idea for some students to grasp when they start learning to subtract. Brick Math is a K-6 math curriculum that uses LEGO® bricks to model 11 different math subjects: Counting, Addition, Subtraction, Multiplication, Division, Basic Fractions, Basic Measurement, Fraction Multiplication, Fraction Division, Advanced Measurement and Geometry, and Decimals. This year, the program will expand to include grades 6 - 8, with the additional subjects Data and Statistics, Pre-Algebra, and Ratios and Proportions. Brick Math works in many applications: for homeschooling, math intervention, enrichment, and as a whole-school program. Materials are simple and affordable. If you are a math teacher or a parent with a student at home who is learning K-8th grade math, check brickmath.com. The website includes videos for both teacher training and direct instruction of students. You can learn more about how Brick Math improves students' math test scores and hear what people who are using Brick Math have to say about the program. The Brick Math Free Lesson of the Month for April 2023 comes from the book Addition Using Lego® Bricks. It's a great way to show young learners the meaning of ones and tens, and how to transform 10 ones into 1 ten. To get the April 2023 Brick Math Lesson of the Month, "Decomposing Numbers," plus a new lesson each month, click here. This concept is foundational to mathematics, and will appear again and again as students learn about place value throughout the elementary and middle school math curriculum. This simple method of showing how to decompose from ones to tens using LEGO® bricks will help every student fully grasp the concept. Brick Math is a K-6 math curriculum that uses LEGO® bricks to model 11 different math subjects: Counting, Addition, Subtraction, Multiplication, Division, Basic Fractions, Basic Measurement, Fraction Multiplication, Fraction Division, Advanced Measurement and Geometry, and Decimals. This year, the program will expand to include grades 6 - 8, with the additional subjects Data and Statistics, Pre-Algebra, and Ratios and Proportions. Brick Math works in many applications: for homeschooling, math intervention, enrichment, and as a whole-school program. Materials are simple and affordable. If you are a math teacher or a parent with a student at home who is learning K-8th grade math, check brickmath.com. The website includes videos for both teacher training and direct instruction of students. You can learn more about how Brick Math improves students' math test scores and hear what people who are using Brick Math have to say about the program. This Brick Math Lesson of the Month is from a new book not yet out — Data and Statistics Using LEGO® Bricks. The book will be published this spring as part of the expansion of the Brick Math curriculum into grades 6 - 8. To get the March 2023 Brick Math Lesson of the Month, "Representing Data," plus a new lesson each month, click here. This lesson is the first one you'll use to teach students what data sets are and how to represent them graphically and with bricks. This is part of the K-2 math curriculum in most schools. The lesson introduces the terms data point, data set, and analyze, which are all important vocabulary words to understand when learning about data. The lesson uses three different colors of bricks to represent attributes of the data, and it uses the studs on the bricks to track the number of data points within each category of data. The lesson also connects to the math symbols <, >, and = . As soon as they are introduced to the subject, students learn to analyze data both in words and through math sentences. Brick Math is a K-6 math curriculum that uses LEGO® bricks to model 11 different math subjects:
Counting, Addition, Subtraction, Multiplication, Division, Basic Fractions, Basic Measurement, Fraction Multiplication, Fraction Division, Advanced Measurement and Geometry, and Decimals. This year, the program will expand to include grades 6 - 8, with the additional subjects Data and Statistics, Pre-Algebra, and Ratios and Proportions. Brick Math works in many applications: for homeschooling, math intervention, enrichment, and as a whole-school program. Materials are simple and affordable. If you are a math teacher or a parent with a student at home who is learning K - 8th grade math, check brickmath.com. The website includes videos for both teacher training and direct instruction of students. You can learn more about how Brick Math improves students' math test scores and hear what people who are using Brick Math have to say about the program. February's Lesson of the Month is on multiplying unit fractions by fractions. Unit fractions are those that have a 1 in the numerator. This lesson shows how to model the multiplication of any unit fraction by any other fraction. It's key to understanding what it actually means to multiply fractions together. The lesson is from Brick Math's Fraction Multiplication Using LEGO® Bricks. To get the February 2023 Brick Math Lesson of the Month, "Multiplying Unit Fractions by Fractions," plus a new lesson each month, click here. The lesson starts with a discussion of the term unit fraction, along with a discussion about how to determine which unit fraction is largest: 1/2, 1/3, or 1/4. The lesson then moves on to modeling two multiplication problems. Most 4th - 6th grade math teachers would agree that multiplying and dividing fractions is a very tricky subject for students to understand. The methods in Brick Math help make clear to students what is actually happening when two fractions are multiplied together -- not simply the process of multiplying the numerators and denominators together. This kind of deep understanding gives students a strong foundation in math that they can build on as they progress into middle school math and beyond. Brick Math is a K-6 math curriculum that uses LEGO® bricks to model 11 different math subjects: Counting, Addition, Subtraction, Multiplication, Division, Basic Fractions, Basic Measurement, Fraction Multiplication, Fraction Division, Advanced Measurement and Geometry, and Decimals. This year, the program will expand to include grades 6 - 8, with the additional subjects Data and Statistics, Pre-Algebra, and Ratios and Proportions. Brick Math works in many applications: for homeschooling, math intervention, enrichment, and as a whole-school program. Materials are simple and affordable.
If you are a math teacher or a parent with a student at home who is learning K - 6th grade math, check brickmath.com. The website includes videos for both teacher training and direct instruction of students. You can learn more about how Brick Math improves students' math test scores and hear what people who are using Brick Math have to say about the program. Math scores for students across the US have declined since the start of the pandemic, according to the most recent National Assessment of Educational Progress (known as the “Nation’s Report Card”). For fourth graders, only 36 were found proficient in math. Even worse were the scores for eighth graders: only 26 percent proficient in math. The term “proficient” means that the students have demonstrate competency in the subject matter in their grade level. What does this mean for schools? Students need to focus on academic recovery. Students need to get back their math knowledge, and fast. Since math instruction builds on what students have previously learned, more and more students will be set back if they aren’t given the tools to catch up first. Brick Math is a perfect solution for schools, teachers, and parents who want to help their elementary and middle school students catch up in math. Brick Math teaches 11 subjects of basic math using LEGO® bricks. Modeling math with bricks helps students understand what the math means. The program is perfect for students who are struggling and haven’t learned through other teaching methods. It’s adaptable to all learning environments: whole-class instruction, small groups, and individual tutoring. The school district of Davidson County, North Carolina, recently brought in Brick Math throughout the district to help bring their students back to levels of math proficiency. According to Dr. Deana Coley, Assistant Superintendent of Curriculum and Instruction for the district, “We asked our teachers which program students would have the most success with, and overwhelmingly, the teachers requested Brick Math.” Brick Math is a K-6 math curriculum that uses LEGO® bricks to model 11 different math subjects: Counting, Addition, Subtraction, Multiplication, Division, Basic Fractions, Basic Measurement, Fraction Multiplication, Fraction Division, Advanced Measurement and Geometry, and Decimals. It works for math intervention, enrichment, as a whole-school program, and even homeschooling. Materials are simple and affordable. If you teach math or have a student at home who is learning K - 6th grade math, check brickmath.com. The website includes videos for both teacher training and direct instruction of students. You can learn more about how Brick Math improves students' math test scores and hear what people who are using Brick Math have to say about the program.
There are a number of recent research studies that assess the effects of online and hybrid learning during the past three pandemic-affected school years. The studies show that math scores have dropped considerably during this time, even more than reading. According to an Education Week article, students are 12 weeks behind where they should be in math – about four months, or one-third of a typical 36-week school year. There is a lot of federal funding available for academic intervention and support to help kids catch up. Many experts recommend a multi-pronged approach to helping students get back on track: tutoring, after-school programs, summer school, and/or lengthening the school year. Brick Math is a very effective curriculum for math intervention and support in grades K – 6. The program teaches basic math by modeling with LEGO bricks, so the process is tactile, easy to understand, and fun! Brick Math is designed to work in different settings: whole-class, small group, and one-on-one. It is simple to adopt in any of the support approaches a school chooses, as a tutoring curriculum, or part of an after-school or summer program. Recommendations also include the need for schools to implement their intervention strategies as soon as possible, and the funding timeline will help reinforce a speedy plan: schools have only two years to spend the money allocated to help students catch up. That's another plus for Brick Math -- the brick modeling techniques are easy for teachers to learn. There are only a few materials needed: a lesson book for the teacher, a student workbook for each student, and a brick set for every one or two students using the program. As schools try to get back to "normal" this year, the Brick Math curriculum can help bring your students back where they should be in math. Brick Math is a K-6 math curriculum that uses LEGO® bricks to model 11 different math subjects: Counting, Addition, Subtraction, Multiplication, Division, Basic Fractions, Basic Measurement, Fraction Multiplication, Fraction Division, Advanced Measurement and Geometry, and Decimals. It works for homeschooling, math intervention, enrichment, and as a whole-school program. Materials are simple and affordable. If you teach math or have a student at home who is learning K - 6th grade math, check brickmath.com. The website includes videos for both teacher training and direct instruction of students. You can learn more about how Brick Math improves students' math test scores and hear what people who are using Brick Math have to say about the program. |
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