I had anticipated starting this blog a lot sooner than today, but there is no time like the present!
One of my goals for second grade is helping Connor work on automatic recall of his math facts. Fortunately first grade teacher concreted the concept of addition and subtraction. One concern I had however was the de-emphasis on memorizing facts, in lieu of using a number line to solve addition and subtraction facts. Connor started his second grade year relying heavily on his number line to solve addition and subtraction problems. I found this to be a concern when Connor took an on-line placement test for his charter school (in which he wasn't permitted to use a number line to solve the problems). For Connor, a number line has shown to be a valuable tool since he isn't able to rely on his fingers (due to some weakness he was left with post surgery and radiation) for counting up and down. I could see it was going to be important that he be given other tools to help him reach his full potential in this area. My link of the week is a site by "Academic Skill Builders" which provides some fun on-line addition and subtraction games, that kids can play with other children or independently. Besides addition and subtraction games there are other fun educational games to practice: Multiplication & Division, Integers, Fractions & Ratios, Language Arts and Geography. One feature that looks fun (that we haven't tried yet), is using the WII to play the games from this site. I also wanted to share a great article that discusses developing automatic recall of addition and subtraction facts: whic can be read here. In addition to playing online math games, we also have daily fact practice that is built into the Saxxon Math Curriculum, and we play a lot of board, cardgames that involve addition and subtraction. Every week we have a weekly 3 minute math flash worksheet that that Connor does, if he "passes" the fact he moves up to the next fact the following week. After he completes Addition facts, he moves on to Subtraction, followed by Multiplication and Division facts. I've built a mini-rewards program around these weekly flashes. I hope memorizing these facts will provide him with another tool for math success. |
AuthorHi, I'm Melissa.. Mom to Connor. Archives
February 2017
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