Elementary Math

"Kindergartners in a Bridges classroom spend their time exploring counting and cardinality. They focus on representing, relating, and operating on whole numbers with sets of objects and demonstrate their thinking with concrete materials, drawings, and numerals. They build fluency with addition and subtraction combinations to 10. They also represent join, separate, and part-part whole situations in a variety of ways. Students use attributes to describe and classify shapes. Finally, they explore measurement principles and learn about comparisons."

"First graders in a Bridges classroom explore whole number relationships, place value, and addition and subtraction. Students build fluency with facts to 10 and develop strategies for combinations to 20. They read, write, compare, and order numbers to 120, building understanding of the base ten number system through experiences with counting and bundling ones and tens. They also develop their understanding of linear measurement through hands-on experiences. Finally, students explore composing and decomposing geometric shapes."

"Second graders in a Bridges classroom explore whole number relationships, base ten notation, and addition and subtraction. Students build fluency with addition and subtraction facts to 20 and extend their place value understanding up to 1,000. They investigate addition and subtraction problem situations and develop strategies for adding and subtracting 2- and 3-digit numbers. They explore using customary and metric units of linear measurement. Finally, students use geometric language and attributes as they analyze shapes and consider fractional parts of circles and rectangles."

"Third graders in a Bridges classroom explore multiplication and division of whole numbers through activities with equal-sized groups, arrays, and area models. They multiply and divide to find unknown products and factors, all within 100, and they solve multistep problems using all four operations. Students explore rectangular arrays, area, and perimeter through hands-on activities. They use visual models to develop an understanding of unit fractions. They also connect fractions to geometry by expressing the area of part of a shape as a fraction of the whole. Students explore the relationship between numerator and denominator, and they solve fraction problems using visual models."

"Fourth graders in a Bridges classroom build fluency with multidigit multiplication and division. They use area models, partial products, and algorithms to develop procedures for multiplication and to explain why procedures work. Students extend their understanding of place value to 1,000,000, then use this understanding to gain fluency with multidigit addition and subtraction. Students explore fraction equivalence and decimal representation. They compose and decompose fractions, add and subtract fractions with like denominators, and multiply fractions by whole numbers. Students build, draw, and analyze two-dimensional shapes, then classify those figures based on their properties."

"Fifth graders in a Bridges classroom develop an understanding of operations with decimals to hundredths. They continue to build fluency with multidigit addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division and extend division to 2-digit divisors. Students represent fraction operations with unlike denominators as equivalent calculations with like denominators. They calculate sums and differences of fractions and explore multiplying and dividing by fractions. Students use models to add, subtract, multiply, and divide decimals. They learn that volume is measured by the number of same-sized units required to fill a space without gaps or overlaps. This helps students recognize volume as a three-dimensional attribute."