Rabbits' blog 19
Date: 4th May 2024 @ 1:48am
May the 4th be with you...
There have been a lot of blogs and letters about phonics so let's talk maths...
Our maths mastery is fab! A short 20minute daily lesson that focuses on embedding learnt maths facts and strategies. The expectation this whole summer term is that they have rapid recall of number facts to 10 (and I mean ALL number facts from 3 to 10). How confident is your child at saying 5+3=8 without using fingers or objects to find the answer? We have spent all year learning and helping us we have used the rekenreks, lots of visuals (the programme likes birds of different colours!) and verbal repetition of 'stem sentences'. These are blanked out sentences that can be filled with any number fact eg
.... plus ... equals ...
... is made of ... plus ....
This week we learnt 4 for the price of 1:
5 + 3 = 8
3 + 5 = 8
8= 5+ 3
8 = 3+ 5
The programme layout meant that by day 2 they were getting the idea of putting the whole first and then the parts. Check with your child. Do they understand which number is the part and which is the whole or are they reandomly placing the 3 number bonds? 5= 8+3
We have started multiplication as well. We have been counting in 10s, 2s, 5s for several weeks in order to make multiplication a bit easier. Are they confidently counting to 100 in 10s and 5s (50 for 2s)? AND back?
I really like how the process is all about understanding what multiplication looks like. Years ago we went straight in with arrays and x number sentences; now it's recognising and adding equal groups before we touch arrays. So logical and a perfect foundation for really understanding what multiplication means (and will help considerably when we do division).
So, arrays...
an array is when you have rows and columns of stuff...
X X X X
X X X X
X X X X
3 rows of 4, 4 + 4+ 4 =
or 4 columns of 3. 3+3+3+3=
* We have not done 3 x 4/4 x 3 yet
This week we have stuck to rows. It's been a challenge and we have had to keep using practical equipment to see the array before we went anywhere near counting. I worked with pairs of children on Thursday afternoon in order to consolidate our learning and make sure we were getting it before we can move on. As always we recited: the answer is this (--) important but the strategy and how we work it out is this (------------) important.
How can you help at home?
- keep practising counting on and back in 10s, 2s, 5s.
- look out for natural arrays around (egg boxes, tins of beans, yoghurt pots...) and get them to see the row and repeated addition.
- get them to tell you what we did and practise at home. (I used dots and we worked out the rows and wrote the addition number sentence. )
The next couple of weeks we are doing measure.
Expect them to be able to tell the you the difference between capacity, volume and mass.We will do lots of practical investigations, lots of visuals and lots of weighing and filling containers!
How can you help at home?
- start showing them the measuring labels on food and drink so they start to see the difference in millilitres vs litres, kilograms vs grams (stick to metric. UK2 deal with metric/imperial conversion)
- use weighing scales - for anything! Great to make a cake and get them to weigh out ingredients of course but just having them out and them being able to work out 'heavier/lighter' is a massively underrated maths skill that is the foundation of understanding measure.
- full vs empty and degrees in between. It might seem simple but again it is the foundation of all capacity measuring. The language of litres is not everyday language. Aim to make it! Let them play with water. Get containers in the bath and see how many cups is needed to fill the larger plastic bottle with an estimation first. Even discussing how to fill the larger container is a worthy dicussion and will bring into play our science of fair testing (same cup size, same way to fill the bottle, consider spillage etc).
Right off to practise my volume measuring...red or white I wonder?!
Happy Mayday weekend. See you Tuesday.
Mrs H
