Some parents have been coming forward wondering about the amount of homework sent home in Math. I thought I'd take the time to explain how our math lessons are structured to help everyone understand what is really being done, and why anything is being sent home at all.
We practice our math skills every day for 100 minutes. The first 10 minutes is always devoted to a Warm-Up activity, such as mad minute (addition,subtraction,multiplication and division) or a number of the day.
We then practice Strings for another ten minutes, which are actvities that improve relative understanding on basic computations, pulling in patterning and other math strands.
Third, we always review something that we've already seen that might have been a hard nut to swallow (ex: Long division), or we look forward to skills that we will need in the near future (ex: fractions coming up!). This is also our chance to make Math Journal entries that act as supports for new lessons and during quizzes/tests. We usually spend anywhere from 5 - 15 minutes here.
Finally we begin the day's math lesson. This takes up the rest of our time. It is a mix of me teaching directly, group work and paired work. Once we have completed the lesson, there are anywhere from one to four questions that need to be answered either individually or in pairs.
If you child has Math homework, it is because they did not complete their questions in the time given. I always provide at least 30 minutes every day, sometimes up to an hour. We've had difficulty this year as we do not have enough textbooks, so we have tried a variety of strategies to make sure everyone is equipped to do their remaining work at home. Today I am beginning to put the math pages on our blog to help!
We practice our math skills every day for 100 minutes. The first 10 minutes is always devoted to a Warm-Up activity, such as mad minute (addition,subtraction,multiplication and division) or a number of the day.
We then practice Strings for another ten minutes, which are actvities that improve relative understanding on basic computations, pulling in patterning and other math strands.
Third, we always review something that we've already seen that might have been a hard nut to swallow (ex: Long division), or we look forward to skills that we will need in the near future (ex: fractions coming up!). This is also our chance to make Math Journal entries that act as supports for new lessons and during quizzes/tests. We usually spend anywhere from 5 - 15 minutes here.
Finally we begin the day's math lesson. This takes up the rest of our time. It is a mix of me teaching directly, group work and paired work. Once we have completed the lesson, there are anywhere from one to four questions that need to be answered either individually or in pairs.
If you child has Math homework, it is because they did not complete their questions in the time given. I always provide at least 30 minutes every day, sometimes up to an hour. We've had difficulty this year as we do not have enough textbooks, so we have tried a variety of strategies to make sure everyone is equipped to do their remaining work at home. Today I am beginning to put the math pages on our blog to help!