Categories
Arithmetic The Number System

Sad faces and Negative Numbers

There’s some context that’s necessary for this post. So go read Nathan Kraft’s post about arithmetic with negative numbers.

What’s the mistake? Thoughts?

This piece of student work is kindly submitted by 3-act mavenĀ Chris Robinson.

Categories
Arithmetic Distributive Property Expressions & Equations

Distributive Property

What does the kid think the distributive property is?

It’s easy to say: “Well, I’d avoid this mistake in my class by teaching the distributive property correctly.” Well, what’s the wrong way to teach this thing, then? What’s the smartest possible way to teach this, and still end up with your kids making that mistake?

After you’re done writing an awesome comment to this post, go check out Josh Weisenfeld’s blog. He spotted and submitted this gem of a mistake.

Categories
Arithmetic Negative Numbers The Real Number System

Order of Operations, Negative Numbers

Say something smart about this in the comments. When you’re done, go check out the blog from whence this mistake came.