DreamBox Learning®» Open number line

Tuesday Teacher Tips: Using the Open Number Line

Lisa W — Tue, 25 Jan 2011 16:58:17 +0000

Welcome to the Tuesday Teacher Tips series! Each week we’ll highlight teaching and learning resources, ideas to use in the classroom, as well as things to ponder as you go about your teaching day. I teach third grade, and the unit we’re currently working on is one that many students struggle with—money, specifically using mental math to count change. There are so many students that just don’t “get” this concept and it becomes very frustrating because they don’t have a developed sense of number relationships. For them, visual representations are essential. One tool that works well is DreamBox’s Open Number Line. It starts out as a blank line where you decide the numbers to use. In a classroom demonstration, this allows me to “think aloud” to my students and show them what I’m “seeing” in my head as I think through the problem; I’m able to visually model my mental math strategies. I set up the scenario that I was shopping at a store last night. The cashier added up my purchases and they totaled $00.64. To pay, I gave the cashier a one dollar bill. I ask, “How much change did I receive?” To demonstrate my strategy on the number line I type in 64, the purchase total, and explain, “Since tens are so much easier to add in my head, I want to figure out how much I need to get to the next dime. Six cents takes me up to 70 cents.” I add 6 as my addend to 64 on the number line. “Now I need to get up to a dollar or one hundred cents. That’s 30 cents.” I add 30 to 70 on the number line and point out the arcs. “So I added 6 to get to 70, and 30 to get to 100. Now I add 30 + 6, easy numbers to add in my head. The cashier gave me thirty-six cents back.” This works great as the main lesson or as a warm-up to reinforce the skills of mental math and making change. Do you have an effective visual that you use with your students to teach mental math strategies? Please share, we’d love to hear about it and pass the word to other teachers!

Teaching Number Sense Using the Open Number Line

Mickelle — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 16:15:17 +0000

DreamBox Learning provides free teacher resources for any teacher – regardless of whether they’re using DreamBox in the classroom or not! Our free Teacher Tools are virtual manipulatives that can be used with your whole class, or in smaller groups. The DreamBox open number line is an interactive tool you can use to support the development of number sense and computational fluency. It can be used to teach counting, addition and subtraction; as well as for modeling situations and representing student strategies. Use the open number line lesson in the classroom to teach: Skip counting

Ask students to discuss patterns they notice.
Challenge students to use a pattern to predict the next endpoint.
Start at numbers other than zero or count backwards.

Model a situations

During a math lesson or when students are on a field trip, the open number line can be used to model a number of mathematical situations.

Use strings of related problems to model students’ strategies

During mini-lessons, ask students to share how their strategy is similar to or different than another one. Use the open number line to illustrate the similarities and differences.
Save a screen capture or a copy of the screen, along with the student’s name and date. Save it in a student’s file or share it with parents.

Find your own ways of using the open number line – then share them with us! You can access the open number line virtual manipulative free by clicking here. And you can get all of the other free DreamBox Teacher Tools by clicking here.

The Latest Free DreamBox Teacher Tool: Open Number Line: Developing Number Sense™

Sue — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 01:30:50 +0000

At DreamBox our passion is bringing math to life for all students! So we have created math resources for teachers – free teacher tools with interactive virtual manipulatives that any teacher can access free to support math learning in the classroom. Research suggests that using virtual manipulatives can help students develop a richer understanding of concepts, even more than using physical tools, and can be particularly useful for students with language difficulties. (Read the DreamBox blog on using virtual manipulatives to teach early numeracy.)

The DreamBox open number line tool

Open Number Line: Developing Number Sense™ The interactive open number line is the most recent DreamBox Teacher Tool we’re offering to teachers for free! Teachers can use the open number line virtual manipulative within a variety of instructional contexts. With it, you can support the development of number sense and computational fluency. For example:

Envision numbers as the magnitude of distances on a line, as equivalent quantities, and by their proximity to landmark numbers.
Explore operations (addition, subtraction, etc.) to support the development of various efficient strategies for computational fluency.

Since it is not attached to a specific type of problem, teachers can use it to solve a range of problems and represent students’ strategies. The virtual open number line can be used to explore mathematical ideas including counting, skip counting, addition and subtraction, and modeling situations. For ideas on using DreamBox Learning’s open number line tool with stand-alone activities or as a supplement to an existing math curriculum, visit www.dreambox.com/teachertools/open_number_line. DreamBox also provides resources to support the professional development of teachers as they learn to incorporate the virtual manipulatives in the classroom: tutorials and suggestions for using the tools in lessons.