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Dear Sunset Ridge Families,
This week, my newsletter focus is on math. I shared our Winter Data Snapshot with you a few weeks ago, and you might have noticed that, while our growth in literacy was generally strong, our growth in math was less consistent. As we met in teams to make sense of the data and generate some ideas for improvement, some themes stood out that I thought I'd write about.
There were some school-specific strategies that we’re putting in place, but one takeaway I had was that families can do a lot to help get kids ready to learn math!
Our Bridges Math curriculum features games and “workplaces” where kids work cooperatively in small groups to practice their skills.
Something that I have heard our teachers notice is kids coming to school with fewer skills than in past years with board games, from rolling dice to game mechanics to card games to losing with grace to 1-to-1 correspondence (like moving pieces the number shown on a dice) and more. This could be a sign of the increasingly digital times, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t invite families to do some games at home as a form of homework and preparation for learning at school.
Connected to that, memorized math facts enable students to access increasingly complex math problems. If they don’t have facts memorized, students spend a lot of cognitive effort figuring out the facts rather than the more complex ideas in the curriculum.
As a guideline, here’s what we hope kids can do by the end of each grade;
Kindergarten - count forward and backward within 20
First grade - Add and subtract within 20 (fact mastery means a question like, “What is 17-9?” would be answered accurately in a few seconds).
Second grade - Add and subtract within 100.
Third grade - Multiply and divide within 100.
Fourth grade - Extend those skills to multi-digit problems, fractions, etc.
If you want any suggestions for games, get in touch with your teacher or we can provide ideas as well!
And, if you’re interested, here are the math standards:
https://corestandards.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Math_Standards1.pdf
Happy gaming!
Brett Wilfrid
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