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Category: Family Math Night

Homework the FUN Way

Homework the FUN Way

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Everyone loves to play games. They’re engaging, motivating, and fun. And from an educational perspective, they can be a powerful learning tool. Here’s what games can do:

  • reinforce skills learned in the classroom
  • develop mental math skills
  • encourage strategic thinking
  • foster mathematical communication
  • build confidence
  • engage parents

But one of the best things about games is that they offer meaningful practice in a way where kids actually want to do math. That’s because games, by their very nature, are fun. It’s not too hard to entice a child to play a game. And because of that, games offer important practice in a way that worksheets can’t.

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What Do You Notice? poster – Number Grid Puzzle

What Do You Notice? poster – Number Grid Puzzle

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Skills:
K-2: number recognition, pattern
3-5: pattern, addition

My youngest son visited the Basilica Sagrada Familia, a Roman Catholic Church in Barcelona, Spain and brought this pattern back for me as a gift. Here’s a photo of his gift: (And before you read the next paragraph where I describe the main pattern, you may want to discover your own patterns first.)

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The Estimation Jars

The Estimation Jars

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This year I decided to add the 0-120 number grids to my K-2 estimation jar. The number grids come from our Math Medley kits and kids can use dry eraser markers to “think” as they’re working out their estimation. Of course, there’s the thinking paper and the referents, as well.

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What Do You Notice? Descriptions

What Do You Notice? Descriptions

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What Do You Notice? Rectangular Arrays

Skills:
Primary students (K-2): shapes, counting, repeated addition, area
Intermediate students (3-5): classifying quadrilaterals, area model of multiplication, multiplication, prime, composite, and square numbers

It’s been on my TO DO list for a long time. Years, in fact. But I’ve finally checked it off and I’m thrilled with the results.

As many of you know, for each of my Family Math Night events I include a What Do You Notice? poster. These posters are designed to get kids and parents thinking about math on a deeper level. Although each poster has been included on our website, there has never been details…until now. I’ve taken each of the posters and written a thorough description of the math involved. I’ve also included the specific skills by grade span, K-2 and 3-5, and given several examples of student responses.

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Power Packs: Building Number Sense in Grades 4/5

Power Packs: Building Number Sense in Grades 4/5

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I’m excited to share with you that our Building Number Sense in Grades 4-5 Power Pack is now available. All of our Power Packs are filled with games that teach parents strategies and tools to help their children build strong math skills.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, there have been a lot of changes in mathematics curriculum and pedagogy in recent years and a lot of parents don’t feel as prepared as they’d like to be when it comes to helping their child in math. The power of these Power Packs comes in the integration of strategies and tools that parents use as they play the games with their children. While playing the games, not only are parents learning about the new standards, they’re also gaining strategies they can use to help their child in math.

The strategies and tools in our 4/5 Power Pack are:

  • Partial Products Multiplication
  • Partial Quotients Division
  • Distributive Property for single- and multi-digit multiplication
  • Front End Estimation
  • Fraction Bars
  • Multiplying Fractions on a Number Line
  • Rounding
  • Order of Operations
  • Standard Algorithms for addition, subtraction, multiplication, division
  • Multiplication Strategies for Multiples of 10

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