Seeing the Math You Teach, Grades K-6 : An Elementary Teacher?s Quick-guide to Meaningful Mathematical Strategies and Representations

Because when you see the math, they can see it too.

The role of today’s classroom teacher has evolved from being a disseminator of information to a facilitator of learning. As an elementary teacher, you can guide student thinking to deeper levels of understanding by making connections between and among physical, visual, symbolic, verbal and contextual representations.

Seeing the Math You Teach, Grades K-6 is intended to help you help your students. It is an accessible guide for elementary teachers that focuses on making mathematics meaningful through multiple strategies and representations to help foster a love for mathematics in their students. The authors have written this book based on the deep belief that everyone can be good at math. It illustrates the most commonly seen and used visual models of each of the elementary mathematical content areas the way children think about them. Rather than a book full of prescribed problem solving strategies, this book will help you and your students literally “see” the structure of mathematical concepts–how and why they work–and make connections among various representations and topics.

This is not the kind of book to be read cover-to-cover. It is organized in a flexible format to inform the math teaching and learning going on in a classroom at a given moment. Enhancing teachers’ own clarity and understanding in mathematics, or in other words, “to see the math they teach,” this book:

• Provides 16 color-coded chapters–and a Topic Index–that can be used to quickly locate specific topics such as “place value”, “unit fractions” or “equivalent ratios”
• Incorporates videos of how to use manipulatives to connect physical models to other visual representations
• Can be used as a planning tool with your PLC, a desk-reference, a teaching tool, and a family support tool.

This guide equips you to help your students derive meaning, sense, and joy out of their mathematics learning. It helps them see math as more than “just numbers”--illustrating the ways they think and focusing on their understanding of how and why math works.

Kimberly Rimbey is an author, inventor, entrepreneur, speaker, consultant, coach, mentor, advocate, and, proudest of all, a teacher through and through. Kim currently serves as the Chief Learning Officer and CEO at KP® Mathematics and an Official Building Thinking Classrooms Consultant alongside Peter Liljedahl. A life-long teacher and learner, her heart’s work centers on equipping teachers and helping them fall in love with teaching and learning over and over again. 

Always a teacher at heart, Kim has held several leadership positions, including Executive Director of Curriculum and Instruction, Chief Learning Officer, and Mathematica Program Area Coordinator. That said, everything Kim has done in her career is based on what she learned during her 18 years as a mathematics coach and classroom teacher. 

Kim is National Board Certified in Early Adolescent Mathematics, and she is a recipient of the Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics Teaching. Kim is the co-inventor of KP® Ten-Frame Tiles and has authored and co-authored several publications, including the Mastering Math Manipulatives and Meaningful Small Groups in Math for Corwin, Math Power: Simple Solutions for Mastering Math for the Rodel Foundation of Arizona, and, most recently, The Amazing Ten Frame series for KP Mathematics. 

Kim earned her BA in Elementary Education and Mathematics from Grand Canyon University, her M.Ed. degrees in Early Childhood Education and Educational Leadership from Arizona State University and Northern Arizona University, and her Ph.D. in Curriculum and Instruction from Arizona State University. Kim lives in Phoenix, Arizona, where she continues to inspire teachers and their leaders. 

Katie Basham is an aggressive Scrabble player, avid reader, affectionate mother and wife. She is also an Instructional Specialist in the Pacific NorthWest where she leads professional development and works to advance the learning of teachers both in the classroom as well as in collaborative groups. She is a former classroom teacher, elementary math specialist, and assessment coordinator. Katie strives to support teachers and teacher- leaders in their efforts to improve mathematics learning opportunities for all students. She is active in state and national mathematics organizations and has served on the Arizona Math Leaders Board of Directors. She received her Master’s Degree from Northern Arizona University and her Bachelor’s Degree from Boston College. Katie is a self-proclaimed “nerd” and proud of it; in addition to her love of numbers she is also an avid reader and enjoys walks on the beach with “Honey”, the family′s Silver Labrador.

Chryste Berda is an adventurer, traveler, teacher, coach, consultant, author, and mom of two amazing Gen Z guys. She finds joy in singing at the top of her lungs and in the art of teaching. Chryste is energized by sharing her passion for learning with her colleagues as the district math coordinator and as a Regional VP for the Arizona Association of Teachers of Mathematics. She is intensely curious about students’ thinking and spends much of her time listening to students explain their ideas.  Chryste is an Honors program graduate from Western Oregon University with a Bachelor’s degree in Elementary Education and Interdisciplinary Studies with a Specialty in Mathematics. She holds two Master’s degrees from Arizona State University - one in Curriculum and Instruction, the other in Educational Leadership. She has taught mostly math to students in grades K-12, their teachers, and leaders (in addition to some other very fun courses) since 1998. Chryste is a native Oregonian who for the past twenty-ish years has lived with her family in Arizona′s Valley of the Sun. She and her husband are raising two Arizona natives and aspire to become “snowbirds” in the future.