Resource Review: The Math Daily 3 - Strategies to Enhance Math Instructions

Title: The Daily 5, Chapter 8: The Math Daily 3

Author: Gail Boushey, Joan Moser Publisher: Stenhouse Publishers Year: 2014

While The Daily 5’s main focus is on literacy, the chapter 8 of this book is about The Math Daily 3. The authors’ solution to help teachers structure math time so students develop math proficiency in a fun and dynamic way. The Math Daily 3 is structured into the following three choices:

1- Math By Myself

2- Math Writing

3- Math With Someone

Pros of using this resource:

· Engaging for students as the Daily 3 offer a variety of activities where students are encouraged to use different strategies for addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. If one strategy doesn’t work for some students, they can use another one.

· The Math Daily 3 activities allow to accommodate a variety of learning styles, students who are more introvert might prefer Math By Myself activities, students who are more kinesthetic might prefer Math With Someone and choose an activity with manipulatives.

· Because students are offered more freedom and choices in what they want to do, they become more independent and engaged.

· The Math Daily 3 strategies are well explained by the authors and the book includes pictures to demonstrate how to structure the activities.

Cons of using this resource:

· Time consuming at first and it is resource intensive. Teachers need to prepare lots of activities beforehand and prepare bins of materials.

· Teachers have to research and create their own materials if they are not a paying member of the Daily Cafe Community.

· It costs money to become a member.

Using The Math Daily 3 in a lesson I could design a Math lesson for grade 4 using The Math Daily 3 to promote the use of a variety of activities to solve problems. In this situation, I

will describe a lesson that could be built around the following:

Ontario curriculum expectation

Grade 4, p.66, strand: number sense and numeration: • Solve problems involving the addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division of single and multi digit whole numbers using a variety of

strategies.

First I would start the lesson with a foundation lesson for one of The Math Daily 3 and remind students of the rules and routine that we have established for The Daily 3. I would present the activities and their materials, demonstrate how to do the activities, tell them what my expectations are (for the activities, the transitions, the goals that they set for themselves, etc.). I will ask each student which of the Daily 3 they plan to do today (to ensure that they do something new). Then, I will see how they transition and make sure that every student is on task. Once everyone is installed, I would conference and re-teach some of the material that we previously learned to my students who are on IEPs or need extra support.