Have you seen students in upper elementary or middle school use their fingers to calculate? What early elementary experiences would build fluency with mental calculation so students would not need to rely on their fingers in later grades?

The mathematics resource linked in the tile below uses video excerpts and written resources to support your reflection and learning about early elementary experiences that build fluency and flexibility with numbers. It provides opportunities to watch and reflect on games and activities that build student comfort in composing-decomposing, making groups of ten, and how these strategies can help students with single-digit addition. You are then able to reflect alongside a lesson study team from Pine Trail Elementary in Florida as they explore a related topic. Specifically, they address how this student knowledge can be applied to addition of larger numbers involving regrouping and connecting this conceptual understanding with the standard algorithm.