When I hear the term balanced numeracy my mind instantly jumps to my districts balanced literacy guide and I look for a similar resource. While the Balanced Numeracy Network provides a good overview and links to many helpful resources I am looking for more clarity on the pieces of a balanced numeracy program. Something I found very helpful was the set of essential skills and competencies that were highlighted here . I wish I had seen this sooner as this would have changed how I planned for the current school year and will change how I plan for next year. This is just one perspective on the most important things but focuses on number sense operational sense and fluency. This is also a very recent document having been released in May 2020. Another thing I loved is that the site referenced a range of resources and that many of these resources are easily accessible to us as teachers, many of the picture books suggested are available for free as read aloud on YouTube and some on Epic. This site was clearly designed by teachers and for teachers. I would like more time to sit with the site and plan out my final unit for this year using their resources, tweaking what I have to. Make it better.
The ideas presented on this site remind me of the problem solving focus in the Japanese method with of teaching math based on a problem. I was also reminded of three act tasks which promote questioning, deep discussion and higher level thinking. There are also many resources that reminded me of the activities and information shown on YouCubed.
