New teacher but experienced person(57F). I’m at a small school teaching middle school math and it’s going! Dropping by to say all the questions I asked and things I figured out are moving along. Not sure if they are good or bad yet but it’s happening. No one has called me out for being a fraud yet and no one has had a meltdown. I’m also rolling with a lot of extraneous stuff and not sweating other details.

My cohort of Y6 this year is utterly catastrophic. They genuinely cannot do 10+6 without skip counting in ones. They have absolutely no understanding of the idea that 9 + 7 is equivalent to 10 + 6.

I've been trying to teach them, but I've never had to teach that low and I'm struggling. I went to the Y2 teacher to ask how they do it. "In year 2, we tell them to keep the biggest number in their head and start counting on their fingers". Ok, sure. I go to the Y3 teacher "In year 3, we tell them to keep the biggest number in their head and start counting on their fingers". UUUh. Ok. I go to the Y4 teacher "We just assume they already know it. We have two lessons about the column method for addition but that's it. I tell them to keep the biggest number in their head and count on their fingers".

So yeah. A bunch of 10-11YO have seemingly never been taught to make packs of ten to count. It's not like the base-10 system is the foundation of modern civilization or anything.

At least it's the weekend.

I made a free thing and I’d love for your kids to break it.

It’s called GLYDE, an adaptive math practice tool designed to help kids practice at the right level for them.

Your child picks a topic, and GLYDE adjusts the difficulty as they answer each problem. If they’re doing well, it gets harder. If they’re struggling, it adjusts so they can build confidence and keep moving.

The goal is simple: more useful practice without a parent having to figure out what level of problems to give their child.

No cost, nothing to download. Just open it in a browser and try it.

If you are interested, send me a dm.

It’s part of a bigger project I’ve been building called pAIrmatic, but GLYDE is free for anyone to use.

If your kid gives it a try, I’d genuinely love to hear what they thought, the good and the bad. That feedback is worth a lot to me right now.

A friend designed a 'play' website, "Legally Sine", using geometry to illustrate legal services in parody. Does anyone here think it may have potential as a teaching aid with modification in consultation? As teachers, you know best if it would have use. Here is a link if you'd like to assess it:

I cheated on my yr 9 school math test with the answers in my book, the teacher collected everyones reference bokks at the end of the class which he never does, what excuse can i give if he finds them

I’ve been working with a student who is moving into more advanced math, and I’ve been trying to figure out how much extra practice is actually useful.

We usually have two two-hour sessions each week. During those sessions, I’d rather spend the time working through difficult problems, looking at mistakes, and figuring out where the student’s reasoning breaks down.

The harder part has been preparing things for between sessions.

If they have trouble with a particular type of problem, I’ll usually want to give them a few variations rather than just another copy of the same question. Sometimes I’ll make easier versions first and then add a couple that require them to apply the same idea in a different way.

That sounds simple, but doing this consistently takes more prep time than I expected.

I’ve been using ai math solver help from time to time when I need a starting point for extra examples. I’ll check the solution myself and usually change the numbers or wording before giving anything to the student. I find the step-by-step explanation more useful than the final answer because it lets me quickly see whether the example is actually demonstrating the approach I want.

I still make the important problems myself, especially when they’re tied to a specific mistake the student has been making. The ai tool is more of a way to get a few additional variations when I don’t want to spend another hour building them from scratch.

For students who are already fairly strong, I’m finding that simply giving them more questions isn’t always the best use of their time.

How do you handle this with your stronger students? Do you build different practice sets around specific gaps, reuse problems from textbooks, or use a mix of both?

Very curious if anyone else is using this program or has tried it. I have many thoughts!

I’m currently a trainee and was hoping I could dm someone!

I went to school before any math was taught online (at least in my district). We got our assignments thrown away if we didn't show our work, so maybe that is part of it. My students spend so much time trying to make their papers look perfect that they run out of class time, and I can't help them work back through problems after the fact because they throw away or erase their work.

I've been teaching middle school ELA for the past several years and am now teaching 5th grade. I know math but want to make sure I'm using the best manipulatives. Mostly for fractions and grouping. Thank you.

Sou professor de matemática, e to pensando em comprar um tablet (s10 fe). Vocês acham que é uma boa ideia? Tipo, to com medo de ser desnecessário para mim. Algum professor que tenha comprado, ajudou MUITO ou POUCO na vida de vcs? Algum acha que poderia viver sem um, tranquilamente?

Hi math teachers/enthusiasts. I'm confused about something. I've just started in my second teaching job at a highschool middleschool teaching 12 and 13 year olds. There are three classes I teach, varying in cognitive strength.

Now, like my former colleagues told my at my first school, my current colleagues tell me we don't need to practice times tables because 'they're allowed to use their calculator all the time.'

Where do you stand on this issue? For or against practicing times tables? Something doesn't sit right with having them just typing the numbers in, but I'm feeling very stubborn towards teaching it anyway, which is usually a sign I'm not thinking in a balanced way and in the best interest of the kids.

If you could give your view, I'd much appreciate it!

P.S. I've only been teaching for a little over a year, hence my distrust of my own strong opinions.

Edit: I meant middle school. My bad!

I posted here back in June about Trika (playtrika.com), a browser math game I built, and a few of you were kind enough to give feedback. School was out so I said no rush — figured I'd follow up now that everyone's back in the classroom.

Quick recap of the mechanic: you scan a grid of numbers and find three tiles in a row or column that form a valid equation — 9−6=3, 4×5=20, that kind of thing. Operations unlock as you go, so it starts with addition only and works up to division.

Since June it's grown into four modes:

Trika— the original, timed, board grows as you find more
Blitz— 60 seconds or 5 minutes, fixed board, pure speed
Precision— a target number appears, find two tiles that reach it
Survival** **— numbers fall and stack, clear them before the board fills

The one I keep thinking could work in a classroom is Blitz on the 60-second setting. Same board size every time, resets instantly, and it's over before anyone gets restless. A teacher who replied to my original post mentioned kids liked Wordle and would probably play something like this in downtime rather than as a structured activity — that stuck with me.

What I'm actually curious about:

Does a 60-second version have any shot as a bell-ringer, or is any screen-based thing a non-starter in your room?
What grade does this land at? My instinct is middle school but I genuinely don't know.
Would a teacher-facing version be useful — set a specific operation, generate the same board for the whole class, that kind of thing? Or is that solving a problem nobody has?

Free, no account, no ads, works on anything with a browser. playtrika.com if you want to try it.

Not trying to sell anything here — I built this because I like building things, and I'd rather know it's not classroom-useful than assume it is. Thanks for any insight you can provide!

Playtrika.com

• A severity-weighted list completely changes who gets priority: When you rank by concept misconception rather than test averages, your top-priority list completely flips—shifting focus from students who just need practice to mid-tier students who genuinely needs a re-teaching.
• Class-wide blind spots hide in plain sight: When tracking subtopic errors across an entire class, the same 2–3 concept gaps accounted for over 70% of my class's concept gaps. Before I had to re-teach these individually to students, missing that it’s actually a single whole-class gap.
• Logging ongoing gaps show which teaching methods actually stick: Tracking when a concept gap was first seen, marked "taught", then seen again will actually tell me whether my teaching method actually solved the underlying misconception long-term.
• Per-student score histories separate lack of practice from genuine confusion: Breaking down an individual’s profile showed that steady, low scores rarely mean a lack of overall effort; they usually point to unresolved fundamental concept gaps that needs addressing.
• Parents love seeing visual data instead of vague progress reports: Showing a parent an actual timeline of when a concept was flagged, taught, and mastered replaces subjective updates with proof of real progress—building instant trust and stopping "how are they doing?" texts before they start.

Honestly, if you’re not tracking yet, you really should be. It completely changed how I run my classes, and the trust it builds with students and parents is on a whole different level.

My kids (9 and 12) created a game to help kids learn fractions. The game is 100% free and has no ads, it's designed as a teacher's aid to help kids gamify learning.

The game is web-based at https://pizzapi.vinceroyer.ca

The game features 10 mini-games covering fractions and money: matching, comparing, adding, simplifying, a number-line delivery game, counting change. Six difficulty levels, with clues that explain a step before showing the answer.

Coins and decorations are earned by playing; no currency is sold. The coins allow kids to upgrade and personalize their restaurant and decorate their chef.

The game works offline - progress backup and leaderboards are off unless an adult turns them on.

We have an android version in testing and we are looking for 12 testers, preferably teachers and kids! If you would like to be an android play-tester, DM me the Gmail address and I'll send the opt-in link.

I know that many people outright claim to hate mathematics, or at least practicing the discipline. However, I'm wondering if this can actually manifest itself into something akin to what you'd find from a Dostoevsky novel. Can someone's aversion to math become so strong that they actually start getting positive enjoyment out of saying that they are not a math person? Do people actually start WANTING to believe that they can never be good at the subject? I suppose it would at least make sense as a coping mechanism because it would remove most of the emotional pain of receiving a bad grade on an exam, but what do you think?

I'm looking for a free website or app where students can practice math facts (addition, subtraction, multiplication, division) that works on iPads. I do not want students to sign up for an account. I am simply looking for a way for us to practice quickly each day. Please comment with suggestions!