Math Problems and My Daughter

My daughter had the good fortune of having an inclusion coordinator who advocated for her like no one else could. She was diagnosed with autism but that did not stop Mayra from putting her in an inclusion class in first grade. For those who don't know, this inclusion setting is having a child with special needs in a general ed class. This educational setting was both a challenge and a blessing. It came with the knowledge that she would have to try to keep up with the academics and social skills for this environment. Math was one of those very subjects that needed a lot of creativity if my daughter was to understand the concepts. It wasn't only my child that had these difficulties. My friends' children had them too. My daughter's classmates had them too. So we,as parents, all exchanged ideas on how to help them without adding confusion into the mix. After all, the teachers were teaching a certain way. One of the hardest things to teach was how to solve time problems. (ie: It takes Marie 30 minutes to go to school. If she leaves at 7:35, what time does she get to school?) The round clock was the usual manipulative used to teach children how to get the answer. We tried this several times with my daughter. She found it extremely hard to understand how to solve word problems like this using this round clock. Since she did not have problems with a number line, I thought a similar tool would work. And that's exactly what we did. It worked!!!!Let me know if you want a copy and I'll email it to you. Mayra, thank you for everything you have done.