In the photo above, student are using place value discs to help them break a multi-digit number into expanded form. The discs give them something to handle and are a concrete way for them to break apart a number.
At home, you can use money ($1, $10, $100) to do the same thing. Hint: play money makes this activity less expensive! If you play board games with your child, consider allowing him or her to be the banker. The game will take longer, but your child will gain valuable practice with numbers in a non-threatening way. Math can be FUN! Here at PCA, we work to give every student what they need to be successful. That means that for math, your student may meet in a small group with his/her teacher twice per week to work toward mastery or it might mean that your child meets with me three times per week in an even smaller group to work toward mastery.
The goal is to provide the support until your child is performing on level. As your child improves, these interventions (called Tier 2 and Tier 3) decrease. Every child also gets grade-level instruction in the classroom - Tier 1. All these fancy terms really just boil down to this: we ALL want our students to succeed, and we are working together to provide those supports! As part of our curriculum, students in grades k - 5 participate in Math "Sprints" on most days. These are deigned to encourage students to improve on their own performance. Teachers have some flexibility in how the sprints are incorporated into the day, but typically the teacher will have the students complete a second sprint to challenge the child to do even better the second time around.
Ask your child about the Sprints in the classroom - almost all grades are beginning them this week! That summer just flew by! Here at PCA, we are excited for a new school year. Our focus in math this year will be all about hands-on manipulation of objects to help students make sense of mathematics.
This year brought us so many successes in math!
As we wind down toward the end of the year, it's time to start thinking about things that you can do over the summer to help your child stay in tip-top shape!
Some ideas:
Spending just ten minutes per day can help your child stay sharp over the summer! Students in Ms. Aldridge's second grade class are using plastic coins to learn how to add and subtract money.
You can have your child practice this in daily life - ask your student to make change, count pennies, or be the banker when playing a board game. It takes a little longer, but it's worth it! As a reward, these students are playing Math Jenga - a favorite! Each piece has an addition or subtraction expression that the student must evaluate before adding the piece back on top of the tower. You can do this at home - math practice can be FUN!
The 8th graders in the picture above are completing an activity created by their fabulous math teacher, Ms. Feddiman!
It's good to mix things up every once in a while... Ask your student what fun academic things he or she is doing in class! Our math curriculum, Eureka, follows the common core suggestion to use number discs (sometimes spelled disks) to help students with place value. Once students are accustomed to using the discs, they can use them to help with more complex algorithms, such as subtraction or long division. Follow the link to see an example of the place value discs being used as the traditional long division algorithm is also used. Pretty cool.
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Mrs. SilcoxWelcome! I am the Math Specialist at Providence Creek Academy Archives
May 2018
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