Race to 6:00

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Do you have some dice and are you interested in practicing elapsed time with multiplication during the summer? We have the game for you! It is called Race to 6:00. It is a great game to play that practices previously learned skills in a fun way.

Directions: Start at 12:00. Roll the dice and multiply the two numbers together.  Increase your time by that amount of minutes. The first player to reach 6:00 is the winner. (You can keep track using a piece of paper)


Math Update

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The students are being presented with a variety of one-step and two-step word problems. The focus is on all 4 operations. Today we discussed the order of operations. The students now know that multiplication or division is completed first and then addition or subtraction, UNLESS they see parentheses.

Please continue to help your child get faster on addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. Your support is crucial to your child’s learning!



Math Update

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We are on Unit 4 in math. Your child will be participating in math activities that help him or her understand place value, rounding, and addition/subtraction of 3-digit numbers.

  • Place Value Drawings: Students learn to represent numbers with drawings that show how many hundreds, tens, and ones are in the numbers.
  • Addition Methods: Students may use the common method called, “New Groups Above” (which many parents know as borrowing), as well as two alternative methods. In the New Groups Below Method, students add from right to left and write the new ten and new hundred on the line. In the Show All Totals method, students add in either direction, write partial sums and then add the partial sums to get the total. Students also use proof drawings to demonstrate grouping 10 ones to make a new ten and grouping 10 tens to make a new hundred.
  • Subtraction Methods: Students may us the common method in which the subtraction is done right to left, with the ungrouping done before each column is subtracted. They also learn an alternative method in which all the ungrouping is done before the subtracting. If they do all the ungrouping first, students can subtract either from left to right or from right to left.

Math Update

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As many of you know, we have been focusing on a variety of one-step and two-step word problems. Here is an example of a two step problem:

Suzy received 3 postcards of zebras and 2 postcards of monkeys each month for 3 months. How many postcards is that?

Students use the language and context of each problem to determine which operation or operations (multiplication, division, addition, or subtraction) they must use to solve it. Because we have also been discussing order of operations, it is extremely important that your child start to use one equation for these problems.

Multiplication and division will be done before addition and subtraction. If you want to tell people to add or subtract first, you must use parentheses. Parentheses mean “Do this first.”

 


Math Update

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Believe it or not…our first math unit will be multiplication & division. We have a specific time during our day that we focus on reviewing concepts from last year (specifically regrouping as it appears that some have forgotten how to do this with addition/subtraction).

To help students understand multiplication, we will discuss the following:

  • Repeated groups: Multiplication can be used to find the total in repeated groups of the same size.Screen Shot 2013-09-04 at 6.43.59 PM
  • Arrays: Multiplication can be used to find the total number of items in an array–an arrangement of objects into rows and columns.

Screen Shot 2013-09-04 at 6.45.48 PM

  • Area: Multiplication can be used to find the area of a rectangle.

Screen Shot 2013-09-04 at 6.49.34 PM

 


Math Homework

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Your child is bringing home math homework tonight (and probably everyday next week). We have finished the required units for 3rd grade. We are now revisiting specific lessons within our new math book. These are quick and I want to make sure that the children are understanding the material. If they are struggling with the homework, please write a note at the top and I will work with him/her in a small group setting the following morning.


Upcoming Tests

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We will be taking the Unit 6 math test on Thursday. We have been reviewing for this test since Monday. Your child will be coming home with the review sheet tomorrow. The test covers quadrilaterals, area and perimeter. This should be a review because we did this unit in December in our old math book. Click on the shape below for an online game to practice area & perimeter:

We will be having an Economics test next Wednesday, March 27th. A review sheet came home with your child today.

  • Opportunity cost means: (think about choice) The second thing you wanted but DID NOT CHOOSE. It is the one that you didn’t get.
  • People are examples of human resources.
  • Natural resources are found in nature and are things we use.
  • Economics is the study of using resources to produce a good or a service.
  • When we depend on other states for products it is called interdependence.
  • Logging is a Michigan industry. Logging means to cut trees for lumber and other uses.
  • Scarcity means: not enough of something.
  • Taxes, fees, and fines help the government to provide (pay for) goods and services.
  • Government taxes pay for things like road repair, public libraries, state parks.
  • An entrepreneur is: someone that uses resources to produce goods or services.
  • Manufacture means making goods in a factory.
  • Agriculture means farming.


Math Update

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Students are reading time to the hour, half-hour, quarter-hour, five minutes, and minute, as well as describing the time before the hour and after the hour. For example, you can read 3:49 both as after and before the hour. The children would say, “49 minutes after 3 or 11 minutes before 4.”

We started using clocks to solve problems about elapsed time. Help your child read time and find elapsed time. Ask your cild to estimate how long it takes to do activities such as eating a meal, traveling to the store, or doing homework. Have your child look at the clock when starting an activity and then again at the end of the activity. Ask how long the activity took.

We will be learning to add and subtract time on a number line next week.