Mathematics

At Placentino School, math lessons are designed to meet the needs of our young learners. Students explore math concepts and practices through hands-on visual representations, written numbers and symbols, and math talks. They use manipulatives or real objects (“concrete”) to model math concepts, visuals (“representational” or “pictorial”) to represent math models, and numbers and symbols (“abstract” or “symbolic”) to solve math problems more efficiently. This lesson structure is referred to as Concrete Representational Abstract and is a highly effective instructional model. In addition to learning math concepts (what we learn in math), students also engage in the practices of math (how we learn math).  Each lesson provides opportunities for students to engage with math concepts and practices, express their math reasoning, explore various ways to think about and to solve math problems, look for structure and patterns in math, and practice math concepts using numbers and symbols. 

Key Content Standards:

Grade K - Read, write, and compare numbers; compose and decompose numbers to 20; add and subtract within 5; identify, analyze, and create shapes; explore measurable attributes

Grade 1 - Fluently add and subtract within 10 and use strategies to add and subtract within 20; represent and interpret data; understand place value (tens and ones) and compare 2-digit numbers; measure lengths; explore time and money; reason with shapes and their attributes; explore “equal shares” of circles and rectangles

Grade 2 - Fluently add and subtract within 100 and use strategies to add and subtract within 1,000; understand place value (to thousands) and solve word problems; work with time and money;  measure lengths and relate addition/subtraction to length; work with graphs and data; reason with shapes and their attributes

Math Standards
PreK to Grade 2

  1.  Make sense of problems and persevere in solving them.
  2. Reason abstractly and quantitatively.
  3. Construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others.
  4. Model with mathematics through word problems and real-world models.
  5.  Use appropriate tools (i.e. vocabulary terms, symbols) strategically.
  6. Attend to precision.
  7. Take advantage of technology to improve and advance learning.
  8. Look for and express regularity in repeated reasoning.

Massachusetts Curriculum Framework for Mathematics