Resources for Families and Community

We've compiled a selection of high quality Resources for parents, guardians, families, and other community members to help support their children during the implementation of the new standards.

Web Resources for Families

Multilingual Resources

NEW! The Common Core State Standards for Mathematics (Grades K–8 only) in SPANISH! Los Estándares Estatales Comunes de Matemáticas están disponibles en español! 
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Multilingual resources for families from the state PTA are available here.
Download a parent's guide to the Standards for Math Practice here
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These were provided by the San Diego Unified School District.  The Chinese translation is from SFUSD.
  • Download the SMPs in Spanish here
  • Download the SMPs in Chinese here
  • Download the SMPs in Korean here
  • Download the SMPs in Tagalog here

The Standards for Math Practice in student-friendly language are also available in Spanish and Chinese, courtesy of the Jordan School District in Utah

Standards 1-8: K-3 Spanish
Standards 1-4: K-3 Chinese
Standards 5-8: K-3 Chinese

More resources in Spanish are available here.
Más recursos en español están aquí.

Why is Math Different Now?

In this short video, Dr. Raj Shah explains why math is taught differently than it was in the past and helps address some misconceptions about the Common Core.

Websites with activities to use with your child

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Common Core State Standards Initiative
The official site of the CCSS.  The Common Core State Standards provide a consistent, clear understanding of what students are expected to learn, so teachers and parents know what they need to do to help them. The standards are designed to be robust and relevant to the real world, reflecting the knowledge and skills that our young people need for success in college and careers. With American students fully prepared for the future, our communities will be best positioned to compete successfully in the global economy.

SF LOVES LEARNING MATH!

SF Loves Learning is a one-hour educational television show created by SFUSD in partnership with KTVU especially for PreK-2nd grade students in San Francisco. Season 1 of SF Loves Learning aired on KTVU Plus from April 20 through June 2, 2020. Past episodes are available for viewing by clicking the links below.
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You can see some clips that the Math Department has contributed to the show here.

Helping with Homework
This post from SF Public School Mom and Blogger Alison M. Collins: How Many Ways Can You Multiply? talks about the shifts in the Common Core and what they mean for parents.
You’re all ‘math people,’ but you just didn’t know it
Jennifer L. Ruef writes in the San Francisco Chronicle about how and why we are all math people. Here is what you can do to help your child with math: Listen to them.
Homework help - questions
Want to help your child with homework? Download this list of questions that will help keep the thinking and learning in the hands of your child. from denissheeran.com
Professor Jo Boaler's advice for families answers the question: What can parents do to transform maths for their children?
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Ahora disponible en español: ​Consejos para padres, de la profesora Jo Boaler
This website, from the Mathematics Education Collaborative, has practical suggestions for how family members and caregivers can ask productive questions when children say, “I don’t get it!” or “I don’t have any homework.”  
New research shows that doing a little math with your child every day, with the help from an app, can support math learning for kids and even math-phobic parents! from NPR

Storybook Guides

DREME offers a list of books that can be used to share math ideas with kids, along with reading guides, arranged by math topic: Storybook Guides

SFUSD Math Core Curriculum Family Letters

Every unit in our Math Core Curriculum includes a letter to families giving them an overview of the math content of the unit as well as suggestions for supporting students at home.
​Find out more about Family Letters. 

​Family Guides: Supporting Learning in 2020-21

Seek Common Ground and Student Achievement Partners created these to help anyone supporting a child's learning in the 2020-21 school year learn more about what children should know and be able to do, grade by grade, in math and literacy.  These guides provide information on the most important things students should be learning, and how to reinforce learning with everyday activities, tips for talking to teachers, and online resources. 

Math @ Home

Here are some of our favorite resources for doing math at home. Find more online resources, here.

New Resource: Common Core Math: a Grade-by-Grade View for Parents

This document from the University of Oregon gives a grade­‐by­‐grade view of the development of mathematics learning  described  in  the  Common  Core  State Standards.  

In the news
Local and national news outlets are highlighting the work that SFUSD is doing in math education. 
Answering Parents' Questions About Common Core Math - KQED MindShift reporter Katrina Schwartz answers questions about California's Common Core math curriculum. Reporter: Katrina Schwartz
Listen to a KQED report on a recent parent night at Alice Fong Yu School, where parents learned more about the Common Core shifts and how to help their kids with homework.

Fluency without Fear: What about Memorization?

This short paper, Fluency Without Fear, illustrates both the damage that is caused by the practices that often accompany the teaching of math facts – speed pressure, timed testing and blind memorization – and summarizes the research evidence of something very different – number sense. High achieving students use number sense and it is critical that lower achieving students, instead of working on drill and memorization, also learn to use numbers flexibly and conceptually. Memorization and timed testing stand in the way of number sense, giving students the impression that sense making is not important. One way to do this is via games and tasks in which students learn math facts at the same time as working on something they enjoy, rather than something they fear.

Resources from the California Math Council

The California Mathematics Council (CMC) is an association of over 6,000 teachers, administrators, parents, and teacher-educators from California, 45 other states, Canada, Australia, and seven other foreign countries who are committed to improving mathematics learning in the private and public classrooms throughout California, North America and the world! The following are resources and publications from their website:

The Math at Home parent guide to mathematics education is available in English and Spanish. Click on the links below the cover to download a FREE copy of that Math at Home parent guide to mathematics education (permission is granted to share these files with parents, guardians, and educators—all other uses require expressed permission):
To download a PDF file of a single article from Math at Home  in English or Spanish, click on a link below: