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Online tools for learning and practice can be fun and useful to supplement a rich, interactive math curriculum. However, learning is a social endeavor and students learn to become mathematically fluent by doing real math, solving problems in real-world contexts, and by learning to explain their thinking to others. The support and engagement of other people play a crucial role in the development of higher level mathematical thinking.
Allowing students to spend too much time working on math in isolation, on paper, and on screens does not encourage students to reveal to us or to themselves where their misconceptions or misunderstandings lie. It does not allow them to benefit from hearing and seeing what mathematical fluency looks like in others. If they don’t have to speak math, few people really know the extent of their math proficiency.
Games and Tools for Skill and Fact Practice
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CoolMathGames is an awesome site with a terrible name. This site has some real gems hidden in it. Bloxorz is a favorite game of mine.
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MathsFrameUK free arcade style games for math fact practice. There are other tools for purchase but many are free.
- Toy Theater free simple games for math practice for elementary.
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Class Playground has many interactive math tools like balances, clocks, grids, geoboards, fraction strips, and more. It also has many free printables.
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SolveMe Puzzles has a ton of riddle and algebraic thinking puzzles. It also allows for customization and sharing of puzzles you make.
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Education.com has free games and worksheets for math practice. You can search by grade or content.
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Math Playground free online games for math practice. More than basic facts. It does include some logic tasks and short videos that explain basic math concepts. ​
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AdditionBlocks game is fun for building fact fluency in addition and multiplication.
Resources for Problem Solving,
Puzzles, and Deep Thinking
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Youcubed has a long list of great math tasks.
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Robert Kaplinsky is a math educator who writes really good problems K-12, maintains an interesting website, and offers his ideas for free.
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Graham Fletcher wrote a collection of 3-Act tasks and includes free recording sheets for students.
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Steve Wyborney is a math teacher and instructional coach, and he writes great problems. I LOVE his SPLAT problems - highly interactive number sense strategy that can be used at any grade level!
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NCTM Problems of the Week is a large database of interactive tools that model math concepts.
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Greg Tang Math has a wide collection of logic and reasoning games and puzzles. Some are free and some are to purchase.
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Figure This is a collection of interesting math questions that families can explore together.
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Mathigon Puzzles is a fabulous collection of challenging puzzles for older students and advanced math thinkers.
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NRICH aims to enrich the mathematical experiences of all learners and is chock full of wonderful games and puzzles geared toward teachers and families.
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Transum is a very simple site packed with rich math to explore. Games, puzzles, perplexers, investigations, etc. One math teacher made and maintains this site.
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Open Middle Tasks are written so that there are multiple ways to approach and ultimately solve the problems. All free.
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Which One Doesn't Belong? is a FUN open-ended puzzle that asks people to justify why their response doesn't belong in a set. Here is a website dedicated to providing these thought-provoking puzzles!
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Would You Rather? Is a routine to engage students in math-based conversations, and to have students practice using math to justify their ideas.
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1001 Math Problems has many great problems and inspirations for writing new problems.
Tools and Tasks to Build Conceptual Understanding and Number Sense
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Polyup is a free and open computational thinking playground where students can experiment with numbers and functions.
- Multiplicity Lab offers routines and and a collection of math images to engage students in rich discourse that celebrates multiple ways of seeing and thinking.
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Visnos offers a collection of visual math representations, interactive tools, and demonstrations
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PhET Interactive Simulations is a large database of interactive tools that model math concepts.
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Greg Tang Math
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NCTM Interactives is a database of interactive tools for kids to investigate and engage with math concepts.
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Mathigon is part interactive textbook and part virtual personal tutor with free courses, tools, and activities.
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Factris teaches about factors and basic numeracy while rearranging rectangular blocks to fill a grid.​
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Polypad has a collection of virtual manipulatives: polygons, number and algebra tiles, fraction bars, Tangram, pentominoes, and much more.
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EnVision offers a great free collection of math manipulatives and online learning tools. ​
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BrainQuake is an app that explores numbers and patterns.
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SFUSD offers its entire math curriculum online and includes a great collection of games for each grade.
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Berkeley Everett is the creator of Math Flips. These are "flashcards" that encourage relational thinking! Love them.
People, Places, and Other
Mathy Sites That I Like
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Youcubed is a top-of-the-list favorite site. Jo Boaler's site has a little bit of everything. Great problems, tasks, tools, games, articles, books, etc. It is created by a small group of people working to get as many free and inspiring maths ideas out to teachers and learners as possible.
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Graham Fletcher is a math educator who does an excellent job sharing his ideas about teaching and learning math. I especially appreciate the videos he made on math progressions.
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Mathrecreation is a blog by a guy named Dan. He enjoys thinking about collecting ideas about math and education. I appreciate his post on multiplication. He maintains an awesome resource and inspiration reference list.
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Vi Hart is a mathemusician and philosopher known primarily for work in mathematics, musical structure, and social justice. Vi has publications in computational geometry, symmetry, mathematics and music, mathematical art, and math education. I've been watching her videos for years and really enjoy her.
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Vi Hart has a Youtube channel with all of her videos.​
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SineoftheTimes is a blog with hundreds of curriculum ideas across grades K-12 that showcase Web Sketchpad.
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Math = Love is a blog by educator, Sarah Carter. She's got a great list of puzzles, a collection of math jokes, and an awesome list of practice routines.
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Fraction Talks is a site dedicated to providing geometric images to facilitate open-ended discussions about fractions. I do love all things math talks.
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