Welcome to my Math page!!

The students have settled into their school routines, all of the necessary benchmark testing has been completed and it is now time for me to start meeting with students in small groups. This is my 3rd year teaching math in small groups and I love what I do! It is very rewarding for me to work with your children  - many will be new to me this year and some friends I have had the pleasure of working with before. 

I will be working closely with your child's teacher while I am working with them. Parents are often concerned about what their child will miss when they come out for the small group. Your child's teacher is prepared for this and makes sure they are brought up to speed on what was missed. In addition, we make sure that the student is never pulled during their math time, as we want them to have a "double dose" of math instruction.

My goal, as always, is to help your child think of themselves as a good math student and to be more successful in math! The home piece is very important, especially when it comes to math. I encourage you to work with your child on their facts on a regular (preferably daily) basis. I have listed many websites on this blog to go to and to use for practice at home. Please take a look and try to find one or two that might be of benefit to your child. I look forward to meeting you in the coming weeks but in the meantime, please do not hesitate to contact me via my school email if you have any questions/concerns. 

Winding down the year......Summer is almost here!

Even though it's summer, math skills can be kept up in lots of fun ways. Here are some of the fun ways you can keep practicing your math skills throughout the summer.

One of the favorite games we played this year was called 101 and Out! This game, which only requires 1 dice and some paper and pencil is a great way to practice using addition, mental math and place value. The object of the game is to get closest to 100 without going over (hence 101 - and you are out!) You have 5 dice rolls to do this. If you roll a 3, you have the option of taking 3, 30 or 3x3 (younger children can play without multiplication option). Each time you add on to your score, use mental math! The paper and pencil are for keeping score only! The person who is closest to 100 at the end of 5 rolls without going over 100 wins!

Another favorite game is I have...Who has... You can go on-line and print off cards to make your own game, depending on what skill you are working on.

If it's a rainy day or you looking for your child to get in some fact practice, go to any of the sites listed here on my blog. If there are particular facts that you are working on with your child to help them master, you can go on APlusMath and go to flashcard creator and create your own flashcards (this might be fun for your child to do!). There are worksheets you could print off and you could go to the game room and click on addition, subtraction, multiplication or division. 

And who doesn't love food...especially in the summer. The following are all ideas that center around food and math. Have fun trying some of these out!

• Identifying Geometry shapes using spherical oranges, circles of salami, squares of cheese and cubes of cheese.
• Counting: jellybeans, carrots, peas, etc
• Sorting/counting large bag of M&M's. How many browns? Oranges? Red? Greens? Create a bar graph with the information. Ask questions such as "How many more browns than greens are there?"
• Grouping candy or other food items and practice counting by 2's, 5's, 10's.
• Buying snacks at the pool. If you have $5, what can you afford to buy? How much change will you get back?
• Telling your child what time dinner will be and then asking them how much time will pass before dinner? 
• Baking your favorite recipes. Using measuring cups and spoons. How many 1/2 cups in a cup? How many 1/4 cups?
• Discuss and show weight of food items. 1 lb of butter or cheese. 5 lbs of flour. 6 ounces of cheese.
• Setting table for dinner. Two extra people joining the family tonight - how many place settings will you need?
• Survey family on their favorite vegetables. Chart and graph your results.
• If there are approximately 10 chocolate chips in each cookie, how many will be in a whole batch of cookies?
• Pizza/fraction math. If 4 people eat 1 slice of pizza that is cut into eighths, how much will be left?
• Determining how many pizzas you should order for a party, depending on how many people you are expecting.
• Estimating numbers of items in jars.
• Divide total amount of cherries among number of kids present. How many will you have remaining?
• Looking at muffin/cupcake pan. How many muffins will we be able to make?

JUST A FEW IDEAS!!! THE IMPORTANT THING TO REMEMBER IS MATH IS ALL AROUND US!!!

Happy New Year!!!

I hope you had a wonderful holiday and that you are ready for a new year of math learning and fun!

Regardless of what grade your child is in, we have been working hard together to learn basic math facts. Because we have so little time together and we have so many skills/concepts to cover, it is also important that you practice facts with your child at home. There are lots of fun ways, other than the traditional flash card way, that you can use to give your child additional practice. The most important thing is to make it fun and positive! Focus on progress and celebrate every success! Here are some ideas you can try at home:

• Play Fact Wars by splitting cards into 2 piles. Each player flips over 2 cards and the says the sum or product (depending on what skill/grade level they are in). The player with the greatest sum or product gets to keep the cards. In this game repetition and correct answers are emphasized rather than speed.
• For difficult to remember facts, have your child create a "model" using cereal or some other food to help them internalize the fact. 
• Draw pictures to show a fact.
• Have your child make up a word problem to go with two numbers.
• Tape flash cards (you can buy these at dollar store or make them using index cards) on different doors and drawers in the house. Have your child give the answer before they can open the door/drawer.
• Create two piles (1. facts they know and 2. facts they don't know). Focus primarily on the facts they don't know and celebrate each time a card can be placed in the facts they know pile. Your child will love seeing that pile grow!

It was a pleasure getting to meet so many of during the conference days in November and December! If we did not get to speak and you would like to contact me, or having any questions regarding your child's progress report, please do not hesitate to email or call. 

One of the things I get asked about often are ways to practice word problems. Making up your own "Math stories" using the people and events in your child's life is one great way. For example, if your child plays a sport, a math story could be as follows: Bobby's hockey team had 17 players, Lindsey's team had 3 fewer players. How many players did Lindsey's team have?

A good website for word problems is math playground (listed here on my blog). You can also type in kidzone word problems in your search engine and then click on the appropriate grade level for your child. 

We will be working on word problem strategies and skills as well during our group time! Thank you for all that you do at home!!

Welcome back math friends!

September came and went and now everyone has settled into the routines of the school year. I am so glad to have the opportunity to work with some of my students from last year and also to meet some new friends! 

I love teaching and I especially love teaching math and am looking forward to working with your child, yourself and their teacher to help increase their math skills and confidence!

I often get asked if I will be covering the same topics as they are in their classroom. The answer is yes, we all follow the Common Core State Standards, but the beauty of AIS is that you get to spend more time on concepts/skills that are troubling students in a small group setting.

Another question that I frequently get asked is....how can I help at home? One thing is to make sure that your child knows their facts. When a student gets bogged down by not knowing their facts, it can impede their ability to grasp a new concept as they are struggling with fact retrieval. Flashcards are just one way to help with facts. If you do use flash cards, don't waste your time on the facts they already know - take those ones out and work on only the ones they don't. Help them to visualize the fact by drawing a picture or using some kind of visual such as coins, macaroni, poker chips, etc. to help them see and internalize the fact. There are many websites listed on this blog that can be useful to help students at all levels with their facts.

I look forward to a great year together! My goal is to help your child be more successful as well as to see that math is fun, engaging and an important part of their lives!! Please do not hesitate to email or call me with any questions or concerns that you have.

Summer Math

You've worked hard all year....you don't want to lose or forget everything over the summer...so the best thing to do is to practice your math skills when you can over the summer. There are lots of ways you can practice! Here are some ideas.....

*Go to any of the websites listed on this page and practice your facts/skills for a few minutes a day. Here are a couple of new ones that I found that you might want to try out: 

                        www.mathcats.com (great for logic and problem solving)

                                               www.suduko-online.com

*Play simple math games. All you need is a deck of cards or a pair of dice and you can play addition, subtraction or multiplication war.  

*Play board games that involve math skills such as Yahtzee, Money Bags, Math Noodlers.

* Remember math is all around you!  At the beginning of the year we talked about how we use math in our everyday lives. Here are some examples of activities that are a part of the activities that you might be doing this summer and how you can incorporate math into it:

• When you go to the grocery store, try to estimate the cost of a few items. Do you have enough money to buy everything?
• Use the scale and weigh a piece of fruit.
• Use an analog clock to see how much time is left until you have to leave for your playdate.
• When baking or cooking, use fractions for the recipe.
• When you order a pizza, see how many pieces it is cut up into. Tell your parent what fraction of the pizza you ate!
• Look around your house and in nature for shapes and patterns that you see.
• After your ball game, compare the scores of the two teams, and count the total runs or the difference in runs between the two teams.
• At the park, estimate, then measure to see how fast you can jump or how high you can climb on the monkey bars.
• Get a container and put a few coins in it each day. After a few weeks, count to see how much you have. At the end of the summer, count to see how much you collected. How much can you trade in for dollar bills?   Most of all....enjoy your summer and keep up the great math!!!!

There's a reason why they call them word problems...they can be hard, and therefore a problem for most students! In our 4th and 5th grade groups, we have been focusing on how to tackle these. We started talking about the Fantastic Five Step Process, using our hand (5 fingers) as a visual. The Fantastic Five Step Process to word problems includes 1. Identifying the facts 2. Knowing the question and what is being asked (this is key!) 3. Figuring out what information, if any, can be eliminated 4. Choosing a strategy and solving 5. Asking yourself at the end, does the answer make sense?

From what I am seeing, one of the biggest problems is going too fast and jumping to solve the problem without thinking through what the question is asking, and therefore, what operation should be used. For this reason, we have been doing a lot of work identifying the parts and whole in a problem (ask your child about part, part, whole). This is a concept taught in Singapore Math, where problem solving is at the heart of the curriculum and the foundation for the model drawing approach.

Our focus in 3rd grade has been on mastering our multiplication facts as well as understanding the concept of division. We will also start tackling word problems, especially as we start to prepare for the 3rd grade NYS math test.

In 2nd grade, we have worked on counting money, place value and subtraction (with and without regrouping). Here is a subtraction poem that we have used to help us understand when we need to regroup.

More on top? No need to stop!

More on the floor? Go next door.

Get one ten. That's ten ones more.

Numbers the same? Zero's the game! 

In our 1st grade groups, we continue to focus on increasing our number sense. We watched a music video and counted by 5's. We also continue to practice adding and subtracting by 1. Ask your child about our song "I know a song called add one more... you add one number, just one more more...."

Progress reports will be coming home this month. As always, if you have any questions, please do not hesitate to call or email!!

Welcome to my math page!!! 

I started this blog to provide parents with information about what we do during our group times as well to share sites and other useful tips to help you best help your child at home. I've listed several sites on this page that I've found to be useful for kids to go on to help them with their math skills. As you know, it is essential that students know their math facts automatically!! Many of these sites have games that your child can play to help them become more fluent with their facts. No matter what your child's level, a few minutes EACH day of fact practice will make a huge difference!!!

I'm happy to have been able to add 1st grade groups recently! My main focus in these groups will be to increase the students' understanding of numbers. We will engage in many hands-on activities, using manipulatives, to help them build their awareness of numbers and  number concepts. 

We will also be working towards improving number sense with the 2nd grade groups, with an emphasis on place value. We use place value blocks to help build this understanding, which is critical as they work on addition and subtraction with regrouping.

The emphasis in the 3rd grade groups has been on multiplication. It is important that the students not only know their facts, but understand what 4 x 6 means (4 groups of 6). This is crucial as we move towards division.

During the 4th and 5th grade groups, it has become very apparent that they need to know their facts in order to be successful with double digit multiplication and long division. A great site to help with the complicated steps of long division is kidsnumbers.com. When you go that site scroll down and click on division and then click on Snork's long division. This is a fun and interactive game that will also help your child learn the steps!