Three years ago Benton Community embarked on a quest to find the best math series that fit our district. I had the honor and privilege to be on this committee along with other teachers and administrators. We concluded that the best series for us was Engage New York. This series, we found through research, matched with the current Iowa Core and the standards that the district chose as being the most applicable for our students.
Engage New York uses a hands-on approach by incorporating concrete, representational, and abstract thinking to get a solution. I have enjoyed incorporating manipulatives into the lesson so students can get that concrete representation before they move on to the abstract. By using manipulatives and transitioning to representational thinking and then finally to abstract thinking, students have a better understanding of the why and how math works!