Parents,

We’re barely two weeks into school and already our teachers are hard at work helping students build routine, collaborate, and establish classroom expectations.  One of the most frequent questions I get asked as a math coach by parents is “How can I help my student at home in math?”  The simple answer is practice facts.  We will be rolling out several supports in the near future that include FasttMath, IXL, and SumDog.  We want to have students become familiar with these at school before we ask them to work at home.  This doesn’t mean that we should just sit back and wait though.  This summer, each student was sent home with a pair of dice and a deck of cards.  These are great tools to practice math facts.

Each year, we add a little more rigor to our fact fluency work. In Kindergarten, students are expected to know all the facts that make sums up to 5.  In first grade, students are expected to know all the facts up to sums of 10.  In second grade, students are expected to know facts up to sums of 20.  In third grade students are expected to know their multiplication and division facts.

If you would like some ideas for ways to support with math games that use simple objects like cards, dominoes, or dice, follow this link.

Have fun practicing facts and keep working with your student to help him or her become a math fact expert!

-Mr. Reed-Swale