Strengthening Math Skills and Flexible Strategies
In Math Class, students continue to work on improving their math facts and applying strategies to larger addtion/subtraction problems.
Fact Triangles: A set of these triangles were sent home a couple weeks ago. Please have your child use these each night. Improving the speed and accuracy of facts is crucial for their understanding of multiplication/division (which we will focus on later in the year) as well as multi-digit problems.
Multi-Digit Subtraction: As the "foundational skills" of math facts and place value understanding are strengthened, students have the tools and thinking to approach larger problems. When seeing a problem like "913-286", we do NOT want students to simply memorize one specific method. We encourage students to estimate answers first so that they are able to assess whether their answer makes sense. Students will experience word problems, games and tasks/projects where a computation problem (like 913-286) may need to be solved. Being able to break apart the "value" of 913 helps students understand "why" a certain subtraction strategy works. For example, knowing that 800 + 100 + 13 is equal to 913 makes the "traditional/regrouping" (or borrowing) method a strategy that can be applied more easily. When students know "why" a strategy works it allows them to explain their mathematical thinking. Below is a video explaining this method.
Please let me know if your child needs more resources to practice their addition and subtraction facts at home. Sumdog.com continues to be a fun math site that can help students strengthen their overall math skills (not just fact fluency). -Mr. Kafkas
