October 22, 2009

Today we took magnifying glasses out to our tree. We looked at parts of the tree more closely and wrote about what we saw.

We are also learning that it doesn't matter how we arrange a set of items, the number of items will still be the same. The Grade Ones learned about the plus sign and practiced using it. The Grade Twos are working with bigger numbers. It's important to know as much as possible about how the number system works. We'll be spending a lot of time on that.

Here are some ways you can help with Math:

Play board games, especially those that use two dice. In a fun way, children will move from counting every dot to knowing exactly what a roll is worth.

When children are really comfortable with numbers to 20, you can use dimes and pennies to count. The motivation of counting money keeps kids working for a long time, getting lots of practice. Dimes and pennies reflect the number system, so they are a great set of tools. If you child doesn't really understand that a little dime is worth ten bigger pennies, you can play trading games until the understanding comes.