Philosophical Basis for Brighton's K-12 Math Program

• Mathematics can and must be learned by all students. Mathematics education requires high expectations and strong support for all students to be successful and meet their full potential.
• A mathematics curriculum should be coherent and well-articulated across the grades. The curriculum should guide students to increasing levels of sophistication and depth of knowledge.
• A mathematics curriculum should support development of thinking and reasoning skills while focused on important mathematical ideas.
• The mathematics curriculum should support the communication of ideas through reading, writing, and discussion.
• Students must learn mathematics with conceptual understanding to enable them to solve the new kinds of problems the rapidly changing world presents.
• Assessment should be an ongoing classroom activity that supports the learning of mathematics and informs instruction.
• Effective teaching requires that the teacher knows and understands mathematics, knows and understands the developmental stages of learners, and knows and employs a variety of instructional strategies.
• Technology should be used in mathematics education as a teaching tool to enhance student learning, but not as a replacement for basic understanding and computational fluency.

K-2 Math Curriculum

The K-2 math curriculum is Everyday Math. It is a spiral curriculum which allows for skills and concepts to be revisited repeatedly. The curriculum is rich in academic language and allows students to learn through an exploratory approach. The program has an online component that allows students to practice their math abilities through games. Below is the overview of skills and concepts learned at each grade level.

Overview of Kindergarten Math Expectations

In Kindergarten, instructional time focuses on two areas: (1) developing a sound sense of numbers by representing and comparing numbers, initially using sets of objects; (2) recognizing and describing shapes and using spatial relations. Please note that while every standard/topic in the grade level has not been included in this overview, all standards are included in instruction. 

Through their learning in the Counting and Cardinality, and Operations and Algebraic Thinking domains, students:

• develop a more formal sense of numbers;
• use numbers, including written numerals, to represent quantities and to solve quantitative problems;
• choose, combine, and apply effective strategies for answering quantitative questions.

Through their learning in the Geometry and Measurement and Data domains, students:

• describe their physical world using geometric ideas (e.g., shape, orientation, spatial relations) and appropriate vocabulary;
• identify, name, and describe basic two-dimensional shapes, such as squares, triangles, circles, rectangles, and hexagons, as well as three-dimensional shapes such as cubes, cones, cylinders, and spheres; 
• use basic shapes and spatial reasoning to model objects in their everyday environment to create and compose more complex shapes; and
• explore coins and begin identifying of pennies and dimes.

NYS Next Generation Mathematics Learning Standards - Kindergarten 

Overview of Grade 1 Math Expectations 

In Grade 1, instructional time should focus on three areas: (1) developing understanding of addition, subtraction, and strategies for addition and subtraction within 20; (2) developing understanding of whole number relationships and place value, including grouping in tens and ones; and (3) developing understanding of linear measurement and measuring lengths as iterating length units. Please note that while every standard/topic in the grade level has not been included in this overview, all standards should be included in instruction. 

Through their learning in the Operations and Algebraic Thinking domain, students:

• develop strategies for adding and subtracting whole numbers based on their prior work with small numbers;
• use a variety of models to model add-to, take-from, put-together, take-apart, and compare situations to develop meaning for the operations of addition and subtraction, and to develop strategies to solve arithmetic problems with these operations; 
• understand connections between counting and addition and subtraction (e.g., adding two is the same as counting on two);
• use properties of addition to add whole numbers and to create and use increasingly sophisticated strategies based on these properties (e.g., “making tens”) to solve addition and subtraction problems within 20; and 
• build their understanding of the relationship between addition and subtraction by comparing a variety of solution strategies.

Through their learning in the Number and Operations in Base Ten domain, students:

• develop, discuss, and use efficient, accurate, and generalizable methods to add within 100 and subtract multiples of 10;
• compare whole numbers (at least to 100) to develop understanding of and solve problems involving their relative sizes;
• think of whole numbers between 10 and 100 in terms of tens and ones (especially recognizing the numbers 11 to 19 as composed of a ten and some ones); and
• understand the order of the counting numbers and their relative magnitudes through activities that build number sense.

Through their learning in the Measurement and Data domain, students:

• develop an understanding of the meaning and processes of measurement.

  NYS Next Generation Mathematics Learning Standards - Grade 1 

Overview Grade 2 Math Expectations

In Grade 2, instructional time should focus on four areas: (1) extending understanding of base-ten notation; (2) building fluency with addition and subtraction; (3) using standard units of measure; and (4) analyzing and classifying two dimensional shapes as polygons or non-polygons. Please note that while every standard/topic in the grade level has not been included in this overview, all standards should be included in instruction. 

Through their learning in the Number and Operations in Base Ten domain, students:

• extend their understanding of the base-ten system. This includes ideas of counting in fives, tens, and multiples of hundreds, tens, and ones, as well as number relationships involving these units, including comparing; and 
• understand multi-digit numbers (up to 1000) written in base-ten notation, recognizing that the digits in each place represent amounts of thousands, hundreds, tens, or ones (e.g., 853 is 8 hundreds + 5 tens + 3 ones). 

Through their learning in the Operations and Algebraic Thinking and Numbers and Operations in Base Ten domains, students:

• use their understanding of addition to develop fluency with addition and subtraction within 100;
• solve problems within 1000 by applying their understanding of models for addition and subtraction.

Through their learning in the Measurement and Data domain, students:

• recognize the need for standard units of measure (centimeter and inch) and use rulers and other measurement tools with the understanding that linear measure involves an iteration of units; and 
• recognize that the smaller the unit, the more iterations needed to cover a given length.

Through their learning in the Geometry domain, students:

• describe and classify shapes as polygons or non-polygons;
• investigate, describe, and reason about decomposing and combining shapes to make other shapes; and
• draw, partition, and analyze two-dimensional shapes to develop a foundation for understanding area, congruence, similarity, and fractions in later grades.

 NYS Next Generation Mathematics Learning Standards - Grade 2