Today in math class, something magical happened! Our amazing teacher used the Concrete–Representational–Abstract (CRA) approach to help students truly see how fact families work.
First, students became the numbers themselves—literally! They held number cards and moved around to form different addition and subtraction sentences. This concrete experience helped them physically feel the relationships between numbers. Then, they used drawings and number bonds to represent those relationships (representational), before finally writing out the equations (abstract).
It was such a powerful way to build deep understanding and confidence in math. Learning through movement, visuals, and hands-on fun—this is what great teaching looks like!