DreamBox Learning’s curriculum has always been robust, rigorous, and aligned with the Focal Points of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. Recently, a new set of standards was released: the Common Core State Standards. These standards describe the concepts and skills that students need to learn at each grade level. We’ve created an overview to illustrate exactly how our curriculum aligns with the new Common Core math standards.

Common Core State Standards

The Common Core State Standards Initiative is a state-led effort to create a common understanding of what students need to know and be able to do across the country. This initiative is coordinated by the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices and the Council of Chief State School Officers.

The K-5 standards provide students with a solid foundation in key mathematical concepts and skills. A strong understanding at the elementary grades allows students to build upon their learning with more demanding concepts and applications as they advance in their mathematical education. The standards outline a continuous development of skills from grade to grade and provide appropriate learning benchmarks.

DreamBox alignment

The standards serve as a guide to ensure that DreamBox Learning is meeting the objectives and learning requirements of all students, no matter where they live. Our adaptive learning environment enhances and deepens the foundational learning outlined in the standards.

We’ve created an overview to illustrate exactly how DreamBox aligns with the Common Core State Standards for math in the areas of:

• Counting and Cardinality
• Operations and Algebraic Thinking
• Number and Operations in Base Ten

DreamBox Incorporates Common Core Mathematical Practices

The Standards for Mathematical Practice describes the expertise that math teachers strive to develop in students. These practices connect students to the process of math and the competence in using mathematical skills and concepts. DreamBox incorporates these practices into our curriculum.

• Make sense of problems and persevere in solving them
• Reason abstractly and quantitatively
• Model with mathematics
• Use appropriate tools strategically
• Attend to precision
• Look for and make use of structure

DreamBox Learning makes it a priority to stay current with what is happening in mathematics education. We work to ensure that our curriculum reinforces the skills students are learning in schools across the country while teaching in the most effective way possible.

Did you know?

DreamBox has been awarded the Parent’s Choice Gold Award

Parent’s Choice is one of the most prestigious parent awards. DreamBox Learning received the gold award last year for DreamBox Learning K-2 Math, and we’ve won the gold award again for our K-3 math program! We are honored to have received the gold award two years in a row. Read the full review on the Parents Choice website.

November Math Activity Calendar

Give your students fun math activities to do while at home. Our November Math Activity Calendar is full of fun and educational activities! As your class follows the calendar through the month of November, students will organize dominos between odds and evens, and count how many there are of each type; count how many inches of floss they use on Flossing Day, and learn all about temperature and measurements during Chemistry Week! Print them out for each child to take home with them, or email the calendar to parents!

Tips for teachers: Trivia in the classroom

Kids love trivia. They want to know the biggest, the tallest, the smallest, or the most of almost anything. A student almanac or book of world records is a great resource for interesting trivia, numbers, and real-life contexts to engage your students. For example, on the website http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com, we learn that the longest ears on a dog are 34.9 cm (13.75 in.). For homework, have your students cut a piece of string the length of their own dog’s ears or a dog they know. Create a class graph with the strings showing the shortest to longest lengths and find the average length. Then, have each student find the difference between their dog’s ear length and Guinness World Record’s longest ear length.