Math article for parents

I think it's important for parents to understand the kinds of things teachers understand about education: http://hechingerreport.org/memorizers-are-the-lowest-achievers-and-other-co

Hard Luck Lynn

Hard Luck Lynn came to talk with the class about the Gold Rush era. She brought with her many examples of the kinds of things the miners would have with them. She explained what life was like in the gold fields.

Social lessons

Mr Nettle came to our class on Thursday and taught us a whole lot about social skills. Through challenges, we learned how to work together and be productive. He has an amazing way of helping the kids see the behaviors they posses that can make them successful or hinder that success. Ask your kids about Mr. Nettle's visit and thank our Ed Foundation for supporting this great program.

Limies

When life hands you too many lines, you become a limie and make limeade!

Author Fun

Muir Woods

Math Curriculum

Wondering what we’re up to in math?

We finished problem solving strategies introduction. The problem solving strategies we focus on are: acting out, drawing a picture, logic reasoning, guess & check, make a table look for a pattern, and make an organized list. We practice these strategies daily with Math Olympiad Problems.

We are also done with our place value unit of adding and subtracting multiple digit numbers, and rounding and estimating answers. Rounding is particularly frustrating for our class as most students prefer to find the exact answer. It would be helpful if, at home, you could support the concept that sometimes you just need an estimate, as well as there are times you round to the place value that makes the most sense based on the situation. Perhaps you could provide them with real world examples.

Our next unit of study is number sense with multiplication and division. We will learn and perfect the algorithm as well as other methods of solving these problems. We will explore factors and multiples. Most of the students do not know their basic multiplication facts at a quick enough rate. We are shooting for 100 problems in 2 min. We will have weekly quizzes, but they will need to practice at home. The class seems to hate this kind of ‘drill and kill’, but it is necessary.