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 This month's free Brick Math Lesson of the Month teaches students how to subtract fractions that have like denominators. To get this lesson, click here, and you'll also get a new free Brick Math lesson every month after that. For many students, the first time they encounter the concept of subtracting a fraction from another fraction can be very confusing. This method, modeling with plastic bricks, breaks down the steps and makes it easy to understand.  The modeling technique clearly shows the meaning of fraction, and also uses the colors of the bricks to show that the denominators are the same. These seemingly small details really help students grasp the concept of what it means to subtract one fraction from another. The method works well for students new to subtracting fractions, or for those who haven't been able to learn the concepts through more traditional curricula.  The September 2024 Lesson of the Month is taken from Brick Math Basic Fractions and includes pages from the Teacher's lesson guide and the corresponding pages from the Student Workbook. Brick Math is a complete math curriculum for kindergarten through 8th grade that models the math with bricks. The curriculum is divided into 13 separate content areas: Counting, Addition, Subtraction, Multiplication, Division, Basic Fractions, Basic Measurement, Fraction Multiplication, Fraction Division, Advanced Measurement and Geometry, Decimals, Data and Statistics, and Pre-Algebra.  Students can start anywhere in the curriculum. Brick Math can be used as a complete math curriculum or brought in as a supplement to help students who aren't having math success with other programs. Check BrickMath.com to learn more!
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 This month's free Brick Math Lesson of the Month is about Square Numbers. You may surprised to discover that it's from the Brick Math Counting and Cardinality curriculum. "Square numbers being taught so early?" you might think. Yes! Square numbers are introduced as students are learning the concepts of counting and cardinality. To get this lesson, click here, and you'll also get a new free Brick Math lesson every month after that.  Early math learning involves developing number sense, as well as building familiarity with math vocabulary. Students at this stage are not yet learning what it means for a number to be squared; rather, they are learning to recognize patterns in the brick models they build, which lays the groundwork for more advanced math understanding later, in addition and multiplication. This lesson is a small but very meaningful step towards building math fluency.  Brick Math is a complete math curriculum for kindergarten through 8th grade that models the math with bricks. The curriculum is divided into 13 separate content areas: Counting, Addition, Subtraction, Multiplication, Division, Basic Fractions, Basic Measurement, Fraction Multiplication, Fraction Division, Advanced Measurement and Geometry, Decimals, Data and Statistics, and Pre-Algebra.  Students can start anywhere in the curriculum. Brick Math can be used as a complete math curriculum or brought in as a supplement to help students who aren't having math success with other programs. Check BrickMath.com to learn more!
 We have something a little different for the free Brick Math Lesson of the Month this time: a multi-day curriculum you can implement as a summer program or refresher course! "Building Skills with Brick Math" is the perfect way to help students strengthen their math skills within a limited time period. This one is for Basic Fractions, and there are programs for ten more math subjects that you can use with your students. To get your free Building Skills with Brick Math program for Basic Fractions, plus a new lesson each month, click here. If you'd like to see more Building Skills Summer Programs for other subjects, click here.  This curriculum is designed to be taught over 12 days. It includes a variety of learning techniques including manipulatives, drawing, verbal explanation, physical movement, and song. Students work with a partner, use the vocabulary fluently in math conversations, and assess themselves on their abilities. The teacher uses the lessons in the Teacher Edition, and the students follow along in their own Student Editions. At the end of the 12-day session, students will have sharpened their skills in Basic Fractions by following this innovative program.  Brick Math is a complete math curriculum for kindergarten through 8th grade that models the math with bricks. The curriculum is divided into 13 separate content areas: Counting, Addition, Subtraction, Multiplication, Division,
Basic Fractions, Basic Measurement, Fraction Multiplication, Fraction Division, Advanced Measurement and Geometry, Decimals, Data and Statistics, and Pre-Algebra. Students can start anywhere in the curriculum. It can be used as a complete math curriculum or brought in as a supplement to help students who aren't having math success with other programs. Brick Math works in many applications: for homeschooling, math intervention, enrichment, and as a whole-school program. Materials are simple and affordable. For an innovative way to teach and learn 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 free Brick Math Lesson of the Month for May is from Brick Math Addition, and it's the first time in the series that the concept of place value is introduced. To get your free lesson on Place Value Addition, plus a new lesson each month, click here.  Place value is an important idea for students to learn early on. Modeling with bricks makes it easy. Here's the idea: 1x1 bricks model the ones place, 1x2 bricks model the tens place, and 1x3 bricks model the hundreds place. That's as far as we go in this lesson, but soon we will extend the place value modeling idea to thousands, ten-thousands, hundred-thousands, and more!  This lesson shows students how to model place value with bricks, and then it uses those models to show addition within the place values. Students start by modeling the numbers 25 and 123 with bricks. Once they understand the concept, they move to adding two numbers. When students model the math with bricks to show place value, the math becomes clear and concrete. This lesson first shows the pages from the Addition Teacher Edition, with the step-by-step lesson guide for the teacher to follow. Then the rest of the lesson are the corresponding pages from the Student Edition, which have written instructions and give students a place to draw the models they are building. Try this lesson to introduce your students to the concept of place value. The hands-on nature of building with bricks will help them understand the meaning of place value quickly. Brick Math is a complete math curriculum for kindergarten through 8th grade that models the math with bricks. The curriculum is divided into 13 separate content areas: Counting, Addition, Subtraction, Multiplication, Division, Basic Fractions, Basic Measurement, Fraction Multiplication, Fraction Division, Advanced Measurement and Geometry, Decimals, Data and Statistics, and Pre-Algebra. Students can start anywhere in the curriculum. It can be used as a complete math curriculum or brought in as a supplement to help students who aren't having math success with other programs.  Brick Math works in many applications: for homeschooling, math intervention, enrichment, and as a whole-school program. Materials are simple and affordable.
For an innovative way to teach and learn 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.  Journalist Jessica Grose has two recent op-eds in the New York Times that question the use of computers for children’s learning in subjects including mathematics. Students are using their school-issued Chromebooks and iPads to watch YouTube videos and play video games instead of following the teacher’s lesson. When kindergarteners learn to read only on iPads, not physical books, their comprehension suffers. Studies about technology-based education show that giving kids computers develops their computer proficiency, but not much else. Screens can help as practice tools, but they aren’t the best method for learning the basics of math and reading.  Our solution: Brick Math. The curriculum was developed as a screen-free method of learning. With Brick Math, students build models of math problems with plastic building bricks in thirteen K - 8th grade math content areas that range from Counting to Pre-Algebra. The students draw a model with bricks and explain with words why the model shows the math. The brick model makes the math tactile and concrete. For many students, the physical process of building with bricks is the key to learning when a traditional curriculum hasn’t worked for them.  Computers and screens may have their place in the classroom as “supports on the margins,” but their use seems limited. A screen-free program like Brick Math engages students fully and promotes true learning. Brick Math is a complete math curriculum for kindergarten through 8th grade that models the math with bricks. The curriculum is divided into 13 separate content areas: Counting, Addition, Subtraction, Multiplication, Division, Basic Fractions, Basic Measurement, Fraction Multiplication, Fraction Division, Advanced Measurement and Geometry, Decimals, Data and Statistics, and Pre-Algebra. Students can start anywhere in the curriculum. It can be used as a complete math curriculum or brought in as a supplement to help students who aren't having math success with other programs.  Brick Math works in many applications: for homeschooling, math intervention, enrichment, and as a whole-school program. Materials are simple and affordable.
For an innovative way to teach and learn 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.  Happy Spring! No April Fooling from us today -- it's time for a new FREE Brick Math Lesson of the Month! This lesson comes from Data and Statistics, which is part of the extension of the Brick Math curriculum into 7th-8th grade math subjects. It shows how to use bricks to model bar graphs and histograms, and maybe most importantly, to understand when to use the different types of graphs depending on the type of data. To get the April 2024 Brick Math Lesson of the Month, "Bar Graphs and Histograms" 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 really uses the bricks well to help students learn how to construct bar graphs and histograms when given a set of data. It reinforces a key piece of information about building graphs: that bar graphs are uses for discrete data and histograms are used for continuous data. Building graphs out of bricks and then drawing those graphs is part of the learning process that gives students confidence in their ability to represent data in graphical form.  Data and Statistics and Pre-Algebra bring the Brick Math curriculum into 7th and 8th grade math. The topics are perfect for middle school students who are learning the topics for the first time, or for students who need some help learning because a more traditional curriculum has failed them. Brick Math is a complete math curriculum for kindergarten through 8th grade that models the math with bricks. The curriculum is divided into 13 separate content areas: Counting, Addition, Subtraction, Multiplication, Division, Basic Fractions, Basic Measurement, Fraction Multiplication, Fraction Division, Advanced Measurement and Geometry, Decimals, Data and Statistics, and Pre-Algebra. Students can start anywhere in the curriculum. It can be used as a complete math curriculum or brought in as a supplement to help students who aren't having math success with other programs. Brick Math works in many applications: for homeschooling, math intervention, enrichment, and as a whole-school program. Materials are simple and affordable.
For an innovative way to teach and learn 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 FREE Brick Math Lesson of the Month for March 2024 comes from Pre-Algebra. It uses bricks to model an ingenious way to teach students how to solve two-step equations and inequalities. To get the March 2024 Brick Math Lesson of the Month, "Solving Two-Step Equations and Inequalities" 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.  What's ingenious about the Brick Math method is the way specific bricks model specific parts of the equation. In the example shown, the green 1x2 bricks model two positive x terms. The red 1x1 brick models negative 1, and the green 1x1 bricks each model positive 1. The long yellow brick down the center models the equal sign. In this way, the model shows 2x - 1 = 7. Then the lesson shows how to manipulate the bricks to solve the equation. The lesson includes a chart of all the values each brick represents.  Pre-Algebra sets the stage for all the high school math in the future, and many students learn the rote algorithms but never understand what they mean. Brick Math helps students develop a true understanding of math by approaching it in a concrete way. Brick Math is a complete math curriculum for kindergarten through 8th grade that models the math with bricks. The curriculum is divided into 13 separate content areas: Counting, Addition, Subtraction, Multiplication, Division, Basic Fractions, Basic Measurement, Fraction Multiplication, Fraction Division, Advanced Measurement and Geometry, Decimals, Data and Statistics, and Pre-Algebra. Students can start anywhere in the curriculum. It can be used as a complete math curriculum or brought in as a supplement to help students who aren't having math success with other programs. 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.  Happy New Year! We're starting off the year with a Brick Math lesson that demonstrates very clearly what "decimal" means. It's taken from Brick Math Decimals Using LEGO® Bricks. Typically, decimals are introduced in 4th grade, and the topic is explored extensively in grades 4 to 6. To get the January 2024 Brick Math Lesson of the Month, "Understanding Decimals," 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.  Decimals can be very tricky for students to understand at first. The method shown in this lesson, modeling a decimal within a 10 by 10 grid of bricks, clearly shows 100 as the whole and the decimal as a part of that whole. Like all Brick Math techniques, the models make the math both visual and tactile, which helps many students gain a deeper understanding of the mathematical concepts. Teachers and parents tell us all the time that they always wanted to use LEGO® bricks to teach math, but didn't know how to get started. Brick Math is a complete math curriculum for kindergarten through 8th grade that models the math with bricks. The curriculum is divided into 13 separate topics: Counting, Addition, Subtraction, Multiplication, Division, Basic Fractions, Basic Measurement, Fraction Multiplication, Fraction Division, Advanced Measurement and Geometry, Decimals, Data and Statistics, and Pre-Algebra. Students can start anywhere in the curriculum. It can be used as a complete math curriculum or brought in as a supplement to help students who aren't having math success with other programs.  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. Math scores in US are still lower than most other industrialized countries, according to the results of the PISA exam, given to students around the world. While reading scores have improved a bit, math still lags far behind in this test of 15-year-olds. In fact, in math, the US ranks 28th out of 37 participating countries.  Why the discrepancy between the US and other countries? According to the New York Times, other countries consider math to be a learned skill, but in the US, math is seen more as a talent. This type of thinking can be very detrimental to students who may be pigeonholed early as not being a “math kid.”  At Brick Math, we firmly believe that every student can learn math. According to author Dr. Shirley Disseler, “There is no such thing as a student who is bad in math. They just need to be taught with methods that work.”  Brick Math uses LEGO® bricks to model math in 13 subjects from kindergarten through eighth grade. Students learn the “why” behind the math, which is key to building their math skills over time. The Brick Math program is perfect for visual and tactile learners. It makes math, which is an abstract concept, into concrete representations that students can see and feel. Brick Math is a modular program that can be brought in wherever students are falling behind in any of the 13 subjects in the K-8 math curriculum.  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 October 2023 FREE Brick Math Lesson of the Month comes from Addition Using LEGO® Bricks. It helps students understand that there are many ways to combine numbers. To get the October 2023 Brick Math Lesson of the Month, "How Many Ways to Make 6?" 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 model all the different ways numbers can be combined that total 6: 6 + 0, 5 + 1, 4 + 2, etc. Building a tower of bricks, students begin to understand what addition really means. It's a foundational skill that early learners need to have, and this Brick Math lesson turns the numbers from abstract to concrete.  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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