No April Fool's here -- money is on everyone's mind! This free Brick Math Lesson of the Month teaches students the value of coins: pennies (while we still have them), nickels, dimes, and quarters. To get this lesson, from Brick Math Basic Measurement, click here, and you'll also get a new free Brick Math lesson every month after that. ​ 

Modeling with bricks gives students a tangible representation of the math concepts. In this lesson, students create models of the various values of coins with each stud on the bricks standing for one cent. Then the lesson shows how many nickels are in a quarter, as well as dimes in a quarter. You can extend the concept by having students create other money values, or by adding monetary values together. It's an easy yet powerful way for students to learn coin values, and they won't forget them!

The FREE Brick Math Lesson of the Month for October 2024 is from Brick Math Basic Measurement, and it teaches students the introductory concepts of area. To get this lesson, click here, and you'll also get a new free Brick Math lesson every month after that. ​

Students will understand area best when you teach it visually. This lesson uses the "studs" on the plastic toy bricks to represent square feet in problems that teach area. Students count the studs to determine how many square feet are in the area of various rectangles. After they understand the idea of area, they learn the formula for area (L x W) and can extend it to other problems.

In this lesson, students are also learning how to relate area to perimeter and understand the differences between the two terms. In  Brick Math Basic Measurement, perimeter has just been taught in the previous chapter. Math knowledge always builds on earlier math knowledge, which is one of the most important reasons to make sure students have a strong foundation of understanding before moving on to a new concept. And the focus of Brick Math is for students to learn a deep, foundational understanding of math.

Last month, the Brick Math lesson was about Customary Liquid Measures (cups, pints, quarts, etc.). We got a LOT of comments about how the US should be using metric measures (liters, grams, meters, etc.) like the rest of the world!

Well, we can’t control that, but we know that kids need to learn metric measures, too—and luckily, Brick Math also includes lessons on metric measures. So the Brick Math Lesson of the Month for November 2020 is about modeling and converting metric measures and is taken from Basic Measurement Using LEGO® Bricks.
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To get the November 2020 lesson, and a new lesson each month, sign up here.

​The lesson starts with the Teaching Guide. It begins by showing how to model the metric system with bricks, using a 1x3 brick as the base unit (liter, gram, meter) and 1x1 bricks to model the tenfold increases or decreases from the base unit. The model includes the vocabulary you need to talk about the metric system (Kilo, Hecto, Deka, Deci, Centi and Milli). Then, using the model, students learn how to convert from one metric value to another: in this lesson, from the base unit of meters to centimeters (1/100). You can use this method to convert any metric values.

​​Pages from the Student Workbook are included after the Teacher’s section. Have your student work along with you using these pages to draw their brick models and answer questions about the lesson.

​It’s important for elementary students to get comfortable with the metric system, even if we here in the US don’t use it in our everyday lives. Students will soon encounter the metric system as they move forward in math, so building a strong foundation (with bricks, of course!) for understanding the metric system is key, typically in grades 2 – 4.
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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.

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.  

This month's free Brick Math lesson is about Customary Liquid Measures -- the ones that are used in the United States (i.e., NOT metric system). Taken from the Teacher and Student Editions of Basic Measurement Using LEGO® Bricks, the lesson is the perfect way to show young learners the relationship between gallons, quarts, pints, and cups.

The lesson uses different sizes of bricks to represent the four different liquid measures. Once students know what each brick represents, then they compare the bricks next to each other to determine how many of a smaller measure equals a larger one. Like all the lessons in Brick Math, it's a straightforward, clear way for students to quickly grasp the concepts being taught. 

And, like the whole Brick Math program, it's easy to teach and fun to learn!  To get the October 2020 lesson, and all the lessons that follow each month, sign up here.

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.

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.  

Area is the subject of the July 2020 Brick Math Lesson of the Month—specifically, helping students discover the formula for area using LEGO® bricks as the manipulative. It's from the Brick Math Teacher and Student Editions of Advanced Measurement and Geometry Using LEGO® Bricks.

To get the free Lesson of the Month, click HERE.
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As you read through the teacher lesson guide in the first three pages of the Lesson of the Month, you'll see that the teacher is not simply telling students the formula for the area of a rectangle. Instead, the teacher and students model a 6x8-stud rectangle with LEGO® bricks and together discuss the attributes of the shape and the two dimensions of rectangles. Students are led to understand the formula L x W = A through the process of modeling the rectangle, then drawing their model and labeling it to correspond with the formula. In this Lesson of the Month, the pages from the student workbook, with questions to answer and space for drawing the models, follow the teacher lesson guide pages.

As with all the lessons in Brick Math, this one builds deep understanding of the underlying mathematical principles. The hands-on nature of the lesson encourages the process of math discovery, which helps students learn far beyond rote memorization of a formula.

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 math intervention, for enrichment, and as a whole-school program. Materials are simple and need not be shared between students. It adapts easily to online instruction.

For more information about Brick 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. Contact us with any questions. 

LEGO® bricks are a very versatile manipulative for math. In fact, Brick Math author Dr. Shirley Disseler has developed a method of teaching students to tell time using bricks!
 
The technique is called a “linear clock,” which models the numbers 1 through 12 with bricks. It works well to teach students how to tell time and how to find elapsed time. Baseplates are joined together to make the clock, and each stud on the baseplate models a five-minute increment.
 
Naturally, when using bricks to teach the concept of time, it’s important to also relate the linear clock to both an analog clock and a digital clock, so students learn how to tell time through conventional means.
 
Here’s an example of using bricks on the linear clock to show elapsed time (from Basic Measurement Using LEGO® Bricks):
 
Using the linear clock model, place a red 1x1 brick at 2:00 pm on the baseplate. Count forward 65 minutes, and mark the new time on the baseplate with another red 1x1 brick. What time is it now? Write a math sentence for your model.
Answer: The new time is 3:05 pm.
Math sentence: 2 hours + 65 minutes = 3 hours 5 minutes or 3:05 pm

Starting today, you can receive a FREE Brick Math lesson every month! You'll be able to download a PDF that includes the teacher instructions for a lesson, plus the student pages that go along with the lesson. It's a great way to try out the Brick Math program with your students
Once you've signed up, you'll receive a new Brick Math lesson every month. 
This month, the lesson is from Basic Measurement Using LEGO® Bricks, and it's about "Coin Values." You'll use bricks to model the values of coins: pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters. It's a simple, yet very effective, way to help students comprehend the value of each coin and how the coins relate to each other. Typically, students learn about coin values in Kindergarten or first grade.
​Click here to sign up now for the monthly free lesson plans + student pages to build your Brick Math library!