KBKilpatrick

Chapter 5 dealt with base-ten concepts and place value.  A students concept of place value developes over the K-6 span, grades K-3 being the most important years in this time.  In years K and 1 they count and recognize patterns to 100.  They also begin to place items in groups of ten as a unit.  Second graders begin to connect these patterns to our base ten number system, and third graders carry this over to 3 and 4 digits.  Children also start working to put numbers together and take them apart in many different ways to solve different types of addition and subtraction problems.  Children should be allowed to use their experiences with computation to grow understanding of place value as well as firm up computation.  These concepts should be taught together not separately. 

Chapter 6 touches on strategies for whole- number computation.  One way of working a math problem should not be the goal for mastery of computational skills.  Mastery of computational skills is very important, however growth of many skills that will serve in the real world should be the goal. 

Chapter 7 geometric concepts and thinking is the focus here.  Not all people think about geometric ideas in the same manner.  It is beneficial to think of objectives in terms of two separate but related terms:  spatial reasoning, or spatial sense.  Spatial sense is an idea or intuition about shapes and their relationships.  Spatial reasoning deals with the way children think and reason about a shape in space.  This chapter talks about how to teach children in both areas at all different levels. 

Chapter 8 discusses measurement.  Before anything is measured meaningfully, it is important to understand the attribute to be measured.  Children must tie measurement and estimation to a personal understanding with the unit being used to measure.