Reading Notes

§ Return the February calendar for Fargo Force minutes! March will be our last month, and we want to finish strong!!!

§ March is also REDHAWKS READING month. Students can "double dip" with their minutes for both reading incentive programs. For Redhawks, students will earn a different prize each week. Weekly prizes are completed by reading 200 minutes. Each week that students meet their goal they earn a base

§ 1st = Pizza Hut personal pan pizza

§ 2nd = Subway 6 inch sub

§ 3rd = Redhawks poster

§ 4th = Free DQ Blizzard & a free ticket to a Redhawks Game

§ As in baseball, you can't get to second if you haven't gone to first. So students need to be sure to be tracking their reading daily and bringing in their tracking sheets every MONDAY!

§ March is reading month:

§ Friday - Cozy up with a good book! Wear your pjs to school!

Dr. Seuss

We are celebrating Dr. Seuss this week. We started our week by reading Dr. Seuss books during our read aloud time. We have a week full of Seuss activities...

Tuesday: Dress like your favorite Dr. Seuss character
Wednesday: Wear your fav/silliest hat
Friday: Wear your pjs

Please help your child remember to participate each day. :-)

Math and Catch-up

So apparently we have been so busy that I took a break from our blog without even realizing it.

So, there will be lots of posts within the next week to catch everyone up. :-)

First a little about math...

When you were learning multiplication facts, did you have trouble remembering some of the bigger facts, like 6 x 7?  Back in the 'old days', facts were learned through drill and kill. There was very little understanding involved. Thankfully, things have changed. Students are now encouraged to use strategies to learn their facts.

What exactly does that mean? It means that students use facts they know to help them understand facts they don't. 
Students usually master their 2s facts fairly easily, because they are closely connected to addition. That is, 2 x 4 is the same as 4 + 4. The 4s facts are double the 2s facts. So if students know that 2 x 4 = 8, they can double that to find 4 x 4= 16. Extending it even further, the 8s facts are double the 4s facts, so 8 x 4 is double 16, or 32.

This is the way it is taught in our classroom, so if you are working at home on facts and are wondering why we are not just "memorizing", think about giving your child  piece of paper in order for them to use their strategies and eventually, fluency and the memory piece will come.

(Also, everyone had a set of fact triangles go home about 2 weeks ago that help practice our facts. Students should be practicing at LEAST 3-4 times a week)

Until next time...
Mrs. Farkas