During the pandemic, the math skills of many elementary school students have dropped significantly. In the coming school year, educators are faced with the challenge of helping students both regain skills and learn new material.
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The latest thinking on how to help students who have lost math skills during the COVID year is to accelerate instruction rather than hold back. Guidance from the US Department of Education is to move ahead with grade-level math instruction, but include new strategies for learning where students show deficits. 

Brick Math is the perfect solution for teachers and schools looking for a way to help students whose math skills have faltered in the past year. The K – 6th grade program uses LEGO bricks to model math, an innovative approach that helps students quickly learn mathematic basics that range from Counting through Advanced Geometry. Since the program is modular, it can be brought in to address specific learning deficits a student may have. For example, if a teacher finds that a student missed out on learning decimals last year, the Brick Math program of instruction for Decimals will help that student move back up to grade level work quickly.

​Here’s how Brick Math can help a student who has lost math skills over the past year:
1. Determine what area of math the student is having trouble with (for example, understanding decimals).
2. Bring in the Brick Math subject area as needed (in the example, use the methods in the Decimals Teacher and Student books). The program focuses on helping the student quickly understand and master the topic.
3. Now the student is ready to rejoin the whole class in grade-level math.

Happy summer to everyone! It's been a looooong school year for teachers, students, and parents—not one we hope to repeat again!

Here's a new Brick Math Lesson of the Month for you to try. We think the Brick Math program will be especially helpful in the upcoming school year for kids who have lost some math skills during the pandemic year.​

The Brick Math Lesson of the Month for July 2021 is on Division Basics. It's a great way to introduce the concept of division to a student. The lesson uses LEGO bricks to model three basic division problems: 4 ÷ 2 = 2; 8 ÷ 4 = 2; and 6 ÷ 3 = 2. When a student builds the problems with bricks and counts the studs on each brick, the idea of division is made simple to learn. 

To get the July 2021 Lesson of the Month, plus a new lesson each month, click here. The lesson is accompanied by a short video that illustrates the brick building process for each problem. Watch it before you teach the lesson to your student(s), or watch it along with your student(s)!

​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 well for homeschooling, math intervention, enrichment, and as a whole-school program. Materials are simple and affordable.
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If you teach math or have a student at home who is learning 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 student math test scores and hear what people who are using Brick Math have to say about the program. ​

​The lesson also includes more problems about adding decimals:
     0.40 + 0.2. + 0.04 = ?
     0.41 + 0.32 = ?
     0.2 + 0.34 = ?
     Use bricks to model the solution
Once you’ve solved all these problems, you’ll know how to add decimals, and you’ll be…as smart as a fifth grader!

​The brick model demonstrates the concept of dividing a set of 24 into 4 sets of 6. Using the 3-D bricks to model the problem helps a student, in the words of writer Paul, "navigate through real-world landscapes." Students put this another way: "I can SEE the math!"

Later, the teacher introduces the number sentence 24 ÷ 6 = 4 so students learn how to write the problem using numerals. This problem is from Division Using LEGO® Bricks.
 
Brick Math methods are based on learning theory from a number of leading experts. The program has been tested on students and shown to improve how well they learn math.

Knowing fact families is a big step toward learning multiplication facts. In this lesson, students are asked to model the fact families for the numbers 6 and 8 using bricks. The lesson also gives teachers a very clear way to demonstrate the meaning of "4 sets of 2" (4 x 2) versus "2 sets of 4" (2 x 4). Besides showing the commutative property of multiplication, the concept of sets is important in many applications , including engineering, as well as a simple application such as sharing!

​​It’s great to see that schools are in gear again, assessing new curriculum for the 2021-22 school year, and deciding to use Brick Math with their students! Schools in Tennessee, South Carolina, California, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina have recently added Brick Math to their K - 6 math curriculum.

Administrators and teachers tell us why they have chosen Brick Math: Teaching Math Using LEGO® Bricks for the upcoming school year:

   Reason # 4 – It’s fun! Who wouldn’t enjoy learning math when LEGO® bricks are involved?

Brick Math is ready to help schools with a program that can accelerate students’ math skills. If your students have fallen behind in math, please visit BrickMath.com to find out more about how Brick Math can help your students recover from math learning losses over the past year. The website includes training videos, testing results, research findings, and much more.

​The Brick Math Lesson of the Month for May 2021 deals with number skills that students learn in the earliest grades. From the Counting and Cardinality Using LEGO® Bricks books, this lesson teaches students how to "jump" in their counting, which helps them learn the positions of numbers in relation to other numbers.

As part of our "Year of Brick Math," the free lesson includes the pages from the Teacher and Student books, along with a video of author Dr. Shirley Disseler demonstrating the lesson. To get the May 2021 lesson, "Number Lines and Jump Numbers," and a link to the video lesson, plus a new lesson each month, click here.

​It's important that children don't just learn to memorize by rote a list of numbers, "1, 2, 3, 4, ...". They need to understand ideas such as 4 is greater than 2, and that when they are counting, each number represents a specific value. This lesson, which utilizes a number line built from bricks, helps students grasp key counting and cardinality concepts.

Students start by building a 1 - 12 number line along with the teacher. When the number line is made from bricks, it's easy to distinguish between odd and even numbers. It's also easy to count both forward and backward, touching each brick as they say its number. Then students build another number line that starts with 2 and jumps by twos (2, 4, 6, 8, ...). It's a great way to demonstrate what it means to count by twos.

This lesson is from Chapter 5 of Counting and Cardinality Using LEGO® Bricks in the Brick Math series. Students typically learn this skill in grades K - 1. Try the free lesson with your students to see how much fun it is to learn with 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 well for homeschooling, math intervention, enrichment, and as a whole-school program. Materials are simple and affordable.
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If you teach math or have a student at home who is learning 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 student math test scores and hear what people who are using Brick Math have to say about the program. 

To celebrate "The Year of Brick Math," we're adding a new feature to the free Brick Math Lesson of the Month -- video! Dr. Shirley Disseler, author of the Brick Math curriculum, demonstrates the April 2021 lesson in a five-minute video that shows the concepts for comparing and ordering 3 fractions with unlike denominators. 

To get the April 2021 lesson, "Comparing and Ordering Fractions," and a link to the video lesson, plus a new lesson each month, sign up here.

Elementary school math teachers know how tricky this skill can be for students to comprehend. When they look at the fractions 1/2, 3/8, and 3/4, many students will think that 3/8 is the biggest fraction of the three, since the denominator is the largest number. This lesson demonstrates the "fraction train" method of finding a common denominator using LEGO bricks to build the fraction models and model the equivalent fractions.

This lesson is from Chapter 7 of Basic Fractions Using LEGO Bricks in the Brick Math series. Students typically learn this skill in grades 3 - 4. Modeling the math with bricks makes it easy to learn. Try the free lesson with your students to see how much fun it is to learn with 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 well for homeschooling, math intervention, enrichment, and as a whole-school program. Materials are simple and are not shared between students. It adapts easily to online instruction.

​We’re putting the 2020-2021 school year in the rear-view mirror and looking ahead to new resources for students as they go back to in-person learning. Students will need something extra to regain the math skills they’ve lost in the past school year. That’s why the 2021-2022 school year is “The Year of Brick Math”!

​There’s never been a better time for Brick Math: Teaching Math Using LEGO Bricks. The innovative K – 6 math curriculum utilizes kid-friendly LEGO bricks to model math with direct, hands-on techniques that are easy to teach and fun to learn. The method is as far from Zoom screens and worksheets as it could be. The lessons are engaging and effective.

Many students have lost significant ground in math during the past year. And parents are very concerned about their children’s lack of academic progress.

The Brick Math program can help strengthen students’ math skills. Any or all of the 11 different K – 6 math subjects can be added to an existing math program to help struggling students.  Thousands of schools, teachers, and parents use Brick Math in various ways: as a complete math curriculum, for instruction in specific content areas, for remediation, in small-groups, or working one-on-one. Brick Math school programs can include professional development, coaching, and individual support for teachers. 

It’s been a tough year for schools and students, especially for math instruction. Many students have lost substantial math skills during this past school year because virtual learning is a poor substitute for in-class, hands-on learning. Research shows the deficits are far greater for math than for reading. 
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But there is a solution. Brick Math: Teaching Math Using LEGO Bricks is a program used by thousands of schools around the country to help K – 6 students catch up in math skills they desperately need. Brick Math has programs for schools to jump-start the math curriculum with specific, hands-on instruction in 11 math subjects. This proven program engages students with LEGO-compatible bricks to help students quickly gain back what they've lost and move ahead in their math skills. Brick Math programs can include professional development, coaching, and individual support for teachers. 

​We’re calling the 2021-2022 school year “The Year of Brick Math,” because it’s the perfect curriculum to help K – 6 students rebuild their lost math skills. Brick Math uses LEGO bricks to model the math, which results in higher engagement with the lessons and deeper understanding of the math.

​Here’s why Brick Math works to bring students' math skills back to where they need to be:

• Modular Components:
The program is modular, so it can be brought in at whatever level students need to make up for the math they didn’t learn this past year. The K - 6 curriculum is divided into 11 different subject areas, starting with Counting and Cardinality in the earliest grades, and moving through Advanced Geometry and Measurement in grades 5 - 6.

• No Screens Necessary!​
The hands-on nature of Brick Math is just right for screen-exhausted students. They build models of the math with their own set of bricks as they learn, and they utilize pencil and paper to draw the models and explain their thinking process.

• Easy to Get Started​
Teaching techniques are easy to learn and straightforward. Professional development for implementation and periodic coaching of staff throughout the year are available to ensure that teachers are comfortable teaching with Brick Math.  

• Proven Results​
Research shows that students who learn with Brick Math improve their test scores dramatically. Learning math with LEGO bricks is a proven method that gets powerful results.

Brick Math is the curriculum solution for schools that need to help students rebuild the math skills they have lost in the past year. Visit www.brickmath.com or call 802-751-8802 for more information.