mathematics teachers - Mr. L's Math

20 Free Math Resources for Classroom Teachers

Jul 242009

Karen Schweitzer

Guest post from Karen Schweitzer, the About.com Guide to Business School

Are you looking for fun activities to engage your math students? Would you like interactive ways to explain difficult mathematical concepts? The resources you need are only a click away. There are tons of free online lesson plans, activities, and resources specifically designed to entertain and educate your math students. Here are 20 free math resources for teachers to explore:

NCTM – The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics provides lesson plans and resources for teachers. This site works to ensure the vision, development, and leadership of math teachers.

Math Playground – The Math Playground is a fun mathematics site for elementary and middle school children. Site features include math games, word problems, logic puzzles, and math videos.

NumberNut – This comprehensive math site features basic to advanced activities. NumberNut is a perfect site for teachers to introduce concepts, such as addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, ratios, money, and fractions.

AAAMath – The AAAMath site features lesson plans covering a wide variety of concepts for K-8 students. The site also provides tools for students to learn, practice, play, and explore math concepts.

Illuminations – Illuminations is a site designed to improve the learning and teaching of math. Features include lessons, activities, standards, and links.

AGradeMath – Teachers can find thousands of free worksheets, flashcards, and games for mathematics on AGradeMath. The site also provides math terms, tools, calculators, and videos.

TeAchnology – TeAchnology offers hundreds of free lesson plans and resources for teachers. Lesson plans cover all grades and range from algebra to word problems.

TheTeachersCorner.net – This site offers several online worksheet and lesson plans specifically for math teachers. TheTeachersCorner.net also provides other teaching resources, such as teaching tips, classroom management, and useful links.

Mrs. Glosser’s Math Goodies – With over 500 web pages of activities, this free site is an excellent resource for finding interactive lessons, printable worksheets, games, and crossword puzzles. Mrs. Glosser’s Math Goodies also has a nice forum for math teachers.

BGFL – This interactive whiteboard site offers several resources and tools for math teachers to use for K-12 graders. BGFL interactive activities cover basic to intermediate math concepts.

Apples 4 the Teacher – This teaching resource provides math activities for elementary children. Teachers can find lesson plans, printable flashcards, and games.

TeacherVision – TeacherVision helps teachers to challenge math students through lesson plans, worksheets, activities, and quizzes. This site covers mathematics for all grade levels.

The Math Forum – The Math Forum provides a wide variety of resources for math teachers, including, courses, workshops, and teaching tools.

Figure This! – Figure This! is a high quality mathematics resource that challenges students in a fun and engaging way. This site was developed for students to use outside of the classroom but presents several materials on how teachers can incorporate the site into their curriculum.

CoolMath.com – CoolMath.com was created for all kinds of students–from those who love math to those who despise math. The teacher’s section offers lesson plans, activities, and games.

MathBits.com – This fun and challenging site provides lesson plans, practice, and resources for algebra, geometry, algebra II, precalc, and calculus. MathBits.com also features a free newsletter for 7th-12th grade math teachers.

SCORE Mathematics Lessons – SCORE provides lesson plans written by teachers for teachers. These lesson plans, which cover grades K-12, explain all of the major mathematical concepts.

IKnowThat.com – This interactive education site provides games and activities for grades K-12. The games are fun and challenging for students and come complete with a teacher’s guide.

Topmarks – Topmarks has several interactive whiteboard activities for math teachers. One must-see feature is the Math Teacher’s Toolkit.

Kids Zone – This NCES site offers a free web app for creating graphs. The grab bag section of the site also features entertaining and educational games.

Guest post from Karen Schweitzer, the About.com Guide to Business School. Karen also writes about online college courses for OnlineCourses.org

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Free Online Math Courses for Teachers

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Jun 192009

Guest post by Karen Schweitzer

Need to brush up on your math skills or prepare materials for a new math class. There are many different colleges and universities that offer free online math courses at the undergraduate and graduate level. Here are ten courses that would be useful to teachers.

Numbers, Units, and Arithmetic – This introductory math course from the UK’s Open University offers a basic review of whole numbers, decimals and fractions. The course is split into three self-study modules and takes approximately five hours to complete.

Algebra I – This undergraduate level Algebra I course from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology covers a wide range of topics, including groups, vector spaces, linear transformations, and bilinear forms. Course materials include lectures, quizzes, assignments, and more.

College Algebra – Utah State University’s free college algebra course teaches students about number systems, graphs, functions, theorems, permutations and combinations. Course materials include readings, assignments, and quizzes.

CSET Mathematics I: Algebra – The University of California – Irvine has an excellent online course designed to help prepare math teachers for the California Subject Examinations for Teachers (CSET). The course includes six lessons and covers a wide range of topics.

Geometry I – This free math course from the Mathematical Institute of the University of Oxford provides a thorough introduction to geometry. The online course includes lecture materials, handouts, and question sheets.

Algebraic Geometry – The Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s free graduate level algebraic geometry course includes lectures, problems sets, and an exam.

Calculus I – Dixie State College of Utah offers two free online calculus courses. This course covers a wide range of topics, including limits, infinity, tangents, derivatives, anti-derivatives, and integrals.

Multivariable Calculus – This free UC Berkeley course offers a comprehensive review of multivariable calculus. The course is delivered through a series of pre-recorded audio and video lectures.

Trigonometry I – This offering from Whatcom College is more of a unit than a course, but it does provide an excellent introduction to trigonometry. The unit is presented through a 20-page PDF and includes text and illustrations.

Computational Discrete Mathematics – Carnegie Mellon is currently developing this free online course, but units are available while the course is in development. The course emphasizes practical algorithms and experiential learning and includes self-guiding materials and activities.

Guest post from Karen Schweitzer, the About.com Guide to Business School. Karen also writes about online colleges and universities for OnlineColleges.net.

Meet Mr. L

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Jun 172009

Bill is the 2006 California League of High Schools northeastern California Educator of the Year

Bill Lombard currently teaches at Foothill High School, ten miles east of Redding. He has taught at the high school level for twenty years, at the middle school level for six years, two years at Shasta Community College, and three years at the adult/teacher level as the Manager of the Teacher Education and Computer Center based in Redding. For the last fifteen years Bill has presented mathematics curriculum to teachers at conferences and workshops.

He and his co-author, Brad Fulton, have written more than a dozen books for math teachers as well as over twenty Teacher Resource Manuals for teacher training seminars. Brad and Bill host a companion website, Teacher to Teacher Press. On this site you may find more materials to help math teachers. Known throughout the country for motivating and engaging teachers and students, Brad and Bill create activities that help teachers who believe mathematics must be both meaningful and powerful.

Bill’s goal is to make mathematics both understandable and meaningful for his students, and on this website he shares some of his materials, lessons, and other information to help both teachers and students to be successful in the math classroom.

Seminar leader and trainer of mathematics teachers

California Math Council and NCTM/NCSM presenter
Lead trainer for summer teacher training institutes
Trainer/consultant for district, county, regional, and national workshops

Co-author of mathematics curriculum

Simply Great Math Activities series: five books covering all major strands
Math Discoveries series: four books bringing math alive for students in middle schools
Teacher Training Resource Handbooks for elementary, middle, and secondary teachers

Workshops, conference sessions, and keynote addresses

All workshops provide participants with complete and ready-to-use activities. These activities require minimal preparation, use materials commonly found in classrooms, and give clear and specific directions and format. Participants will also receive journal prompts, homework suggestions, and ideas for extensions and assessment.

“Excellent…relevant…useful…practical…engaging.”: - Tizoc Tirado, kindergarten teacher

“I have learned more about math in these five days than in all my career.”

- Annie Jackson, 5th grade teacher

“Brad and Bill’s math activities are the best I’ve seen in 30 years of teaching!”

- Wayne Dequer, 7th grade math teacher

“The best and most practical and relevant workshop I have ever attended. Thank You!”

- Leslie Lowman, high school teacher