ThirteenQuartersInTerc

Posted on Jun 12, 2005 @ 14:41 by CatherineJohnson

Breaking the Sunday blogging ban--

I just found this passage on a TERC thread at Math Forum:

A 5th grader in the gifted/talented program at her school came to a carnival. "How much money did you bring?" "Thirteen quarters," she said. "Well, how much money is that?" A blank look, followed by, "I don't know - I didn't bring a calculator." Surprised, I asked her equally bright friend if she knew how much it was. "We haven't had long division yet," she responded. The girls in the troop who use a traditional math program knew instantly that the amount was $3.25. Same ages, same grades, different kind of instruction, different results.

I just asked Christopher what 13 quarters is.

It took him maybe . . . 5 seconds (he skip-counted up by 4s rather than dividing 13 by 4 -- don't know what to think about that), then he said $3.25.


AboutLongDivision
StrugglesWithLongDivision
MathInTheBlood
ForgivingDivision
ForgivingDivisionPart2
TryThisWithForgivingDivision
TeacherGuideEverydayMath
EverydayMathEpilogue
ThirteenQuartersInTerc
HowNotToTeachMath
WhoSaysLongDivisionIsHard

Back to main page.

---

---

Comments

After entering a comment, users can login anonymously as KtmGuest (password: guest) when prompted.
Please consider registering as a regular user.
Look here for syntax help.

WebLogForm
TopicType:	WebLog
SubjectArea:	AboutCurricula
LogDate:	200506121441