Curriculum Design  ·  First Grade Math

Math
Recovery
Curriculum

Unit 1, Week 1: Subitizing & Structuring to 10

Math Recovery is one of the most effective math frameworks in existence. It was also nearly impossible to scale. This curriculum changes that.

Scope
5 Lessons · 1 Week
Audience
K–2 Whole Classroom
Deliverable
Interactive Curriculum Tool
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The Problem

Math Recovery works.
It just doesn't
scale.

Math Recovery is among the most rigorously researched frameworks in early math education. The diagnostic tools are precise. The progressions are grounded in decades of research on how children develop number sense. It produces results.

The problem is implementation. Math Recovery was designed for one-on-one clinical interviews and small pull-out groups led by specialists. Bringing it into a whole classroom with 20+ students, a general education teacher, and 60 minutes requires a completely different kind of material. The existing resources weren't built for that.

The framework is brilliant. The materials assume a specialist who already knows it inside out. That's not scalable.

The gap isn't in the research. It's in the translation. Without curriculum that operationalizes the framework for a classroom teacher, Math Recovery stays locked inside the rooms of specialists who were trained in it, out of reach for the students who need it most.

I
Existing materials assumed deep specialist training, inaccessible to general education teachers without significant PD investment
II
No whole-class delivery format: the framework had no pathway to reach an entire classroom at once
III
Prep materials and in-the-moment teaching tools were not distinguished. Teachers had to hold everything in their heads simultaneously
IV
No connection between lesson-level observation and longitudinal progress tracking across a full classroom
The Approach

Make the research usable
for any teacher,
in any classroom.

The design challenge wasn't to simplify the framework. It was to make it accessible without watering it down. Every lesson is grounded in Math Recovery research. The difference is that a teacher doesn't need specialist training to pick it up and teach it effectively to an entire class.

The curriculum is built as an interactive tool, designed to be used on screen or printed. That flexibility is what makes scalability possible. The interface does work a static document can't: it hides what's irrelevant, surfaces what's needed, and critically keeps prep materials completely separate from live-teaching materials.

Planning a lesson and teaching a lesson are two entirely different cognitive contexts. A teacher working through their plan during a prep period or after school needs background reading, learning objectives, and differentiation notes. That same teacher standing in front of 25 kids needs a clean, fast, focused view. The collapsible architecture serves both: sections chunk the lesson into discrete, manageable parts so teachers can expand exactly what they need and keep everything else out of the way.

01
Anchor Task
A single visual question (a five-frame arrangement) that surfaces student thinking before any instruction. Gives teachers a real-time window into where each student is without a separate pre-assessment.
02
Guided Exploration
Structured activity with embedded talk moves, sentence stems, and visual scaffolds. DOK-tagged so teachers can see the cognitive demand at a glance.
03
Conferencing
Collapsible diagnostic guides with level-specific moves: extend, reteach, observe. Opens in-session when a student needs something different, without breaking the flow.
04
Practice & Games
Fluency-building with partner structures. Frees the teacher to confer with individual students while others remain productively engaged.
05
Checkpoint
Observable indicators, not rubric scores, with recommendations for what to record in Gitch. The curriculum and assessment tool are designed to be used in conjunction, sharing a vocabulary so teachers can move fluidly between instruction and tracking.
Design Decisions

Five choices that
each solved a real
scalability problem.

Color as a navigation system
Each of the five lessons has a distinct color identity that runs through every element: the tab, the section headers, the sidebar, the checkpoints, the accent pipe on every open accordion. A teacher doesn't read to navigate. They see. Mid-lesson, mid-sentence, they can locate exactly where they are and where they need to go in under a second. At scale, across a full week of lessons, that consistency becomes fluency.
Collapsible architecture that respects two different contexts
Background theory, pedagogical rationale, differentiation matrices, and lesson objectives are all present in the tool, collapsed by default during instruction. Prep content and teaching content live in the same place but never compete for attention at the same time. Teachers expand what they need when they need it. Everything else stays out of the way.
Language support built into the interface, not appended to it
Sentence stems, vocabulary definitions, and home-language notes are persistent in the lesson sidebar, not in a separate ELL supplement. A teacher supporting a multilingual learner in a class of 25 doesn't have to switch documents or lose their place. The support is just there.
Collapsible sections that chunk the lesson, not bury it
Each lesson is divided into discrete, labeled sections (Anchor Task, Guided Exploration, Conferencing, Practice, Checkpoint) that collapse and expand independently. Teachers move through the lesson in chunks rather than scrolling through a wall of content. Prep-oriented material like background context and differentiation notes lives within these sections but stays folded during instruction, only opened when relevant.
Example student moves with in-depth explanations and next steps
The conferencing section doesn't just say "differentiate." It shows teachers what a student at each level actually does: specific observable behaviors, what those behaviors indicate about the student's understanding, and concrete next instructional moves to advance them. A teacher who has never taught Math Recovery before can read a student accurately and respond with precision. That's what makes whole-class delivery at this level of depth possible.
Checkpoint recommendations designed to work alongside Gitch
Each checkpoint surfaces specific observable indicators and suggests what to record in Gitch, but the two tools stay independent. The curriculum doesn't require Gitch to function, and Gitch doesn't require this curriculum. Teachers who use both benefit from a shared vocabulary between instruction and assessment. Those who don't can still use the checkpoints as standalone formative guides.
Technical Build

Built as a tool.
Not a document.

The curriculum exists as a single-file HTML application. No framework, no backend, no dependencies. It runs entirely in the browser and can be hosted anywhere. That constraint was intentional: the tool needs to work in the kinds of environments schools actually have.

01
Tab + Accordion Navigation
Five lessons as color-coded tabs. Sections expand on demand. The teacher sees only what they need. The rest stays out of the way.
02
Interactive Tally System
Per-lesson counters track observed behaviors in real time. Scoped to each lesson so data doesn't bleed across sessions. Reset on demand.
03
Nested Conferencing Accordions
A second layer of collapsible panels inside the conferencing section. Teachers drill into extend, reteach, or observe without scrolling past irrelevant content.
04
Gitch-Compatible Checkpoints
Checkpoint sections recommend specific indicators to record in Gitch. The tools are independent but designed to complement each other. Teachers who use both get a seamless bridge from instruction to longitudinal tracking.

Stack: vanilla HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. No build step. Deployable as a single file, which means it can be hosted on a school server, embedded in an LMS, or linked directly, wherever teachers actually are.

Takeaways

What this project
demonstrates.

Translating a rigorous research framework into curriculum a non-specialist can pick up and teach
Designing for two distinct use contexts (prep and live instruction) within a single tool
Using visual systems (color, hierarchy, collapsibility) to reduce cognitive load at scale
Building interactive curriculum tools from scratch that work in real school environments
Connecting lesson-level instructional design to longitudinal assessment infrastructure

The most effective educational frameworks in the world are only as powerful as their reach. Scalability isn't a technical problem. It's a design problem. And it starts with the curriculum.

See it live.
Judge it yourself.

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