Resources for Teachers & Families

We want math to make sense to our children, our students, and ourselves. This page is a collection of thoughtful math learning resources created by thoughtful educators for parents and teachers of early childhood and elementary students. This page is a living document so please check in from time to time to see what's new!

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“Spatial thinking is integral to everyday life. People, natural objects, human-made objects, and human-made structures exist somewhere in space, and the interactions of people and things must be understood in terms of locations, distances, directions, shapes, and patterns.” 
-National Research Council

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Talking Math with Your Kids

"This website is dedicated to helping parents support their children’s mathematical development. We know we need to read with our children every day, but what should we do for math? Answer: Talk about math with them as we and they encounter numbers and shapes in our everyday lives." LINK

Article: Find the math in storybooks ​

"As you read with — and not just to — your child, you may learn that she interprets events differently from you, that she sees things in the story that you did not, and that she learns from the story in ways you did not expect. Reading with can provide a window into your child’s mind as well as clues to nurturing her thinking." LINK

Young Math Resource: Natural Math

 Natural Math is a resource for anyone who want math to be beautiful, useful and fun for their children and students...books, forums, and online courses. LINK

Article: Fostering Spatial Cognition 

"While boosting kids’ math and verbal skills may draw more attention from parents and educators, spatial reasoning skills play an important  — sometimes overlooked — role in academic and career success.  And preschool, it turns out, is a key time to foster children’s spatial cognition." LINK

Game Changer: Spatial Reasoning in School

"Spatial skills don’t get a lot of attention in K-12 education, despite research pointing to the link between spatial reasoning and academic achievement, creativity and the arts ... Teachers started from a place of strength, weaving spatial activities and spatial language into their existing curriculum." LINK

Paying Attention to Spatial Reasoning (pdf)

This document (pdf) provides an overview of how to help students make – and sustain – gains in their learning and understanding of mathematics. It outlines seven foundational principles for planning and implementing improvements and gets more concrete by focusing on particular areas of mathematics in grades K-12. LINK

more resources