New Math Program at Las Colinas

Welcome to a new school year at Las Colinas Elementary. My name is Craig Rich and I am the math instructional facilitator for our school. I am very excited because this year our district is adopting a new math program called Investigations. Many of our teachers had an opportunity this summer to work with other teachers from around the country who have already used Investigations for over ten years. I was very impressed with what I saw. This program helps kids to understand the meaning behind mathematics instead of just memorizing rules. As we learn throughout the year I will post tips, suggestions, and helpful hints for parents so that you will better understand how Investigations work. I will warn you in advance, this math program will not look like the math you had when you were a kid. You won't see many homework sheets with lots of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division problems. Instead, many homework assignments will ask students to explain how they arrived at a certain answer. Don't get me wrong, I still think it is important for students to know their basic facts. I would love for parents to work with their child at home with these facts. However, time in the classroom will be spent exploring math and discovering the meaning behind the methods they use to solve problems.

Here is a problem to get you thinking. How would you solve 73 - 49? Can you solve it more than one way? Can you solve it in your head? These are some questions we would like our students to think about.