Math Goal

It is hard to believe that we are entering the final trimester of the school year. It has been very good so far and we hope that the final few months are the best yet.  We have decided that instead of doing another AR goal this trimester we are going to try to a Math Goal.  We have never done this before and will be working out kinks as we go.  The focus of the goal will be on learning and improving math facts in addition, subtraction, multiplication and division.  This goal will have two parts.  First, we will be tracking students’ progress here at school.  We have an app on our student iPods that will allow us to track student learning in math facts.  This app will give the kids 20 problems to solve.  When they are done it will tell them how quickly the solved them, the average time they spent on each problem, and the ones they got right and wrong.  This information will be graphed each week and tracked. 

The second part of the goal is practicing at home.  We would like your help in tracking the number of minutes your child spends practicing math facts at home.  In your student’s planner please write down the following things: Number of minutes spent each night working on math facts, a short description of the activity and your signature.  Each week we will add up the minutes we have earned together and track them in the hall.  We will send home ideas for kids to use for this time but feel free to use your creativity too. 

Three websites we use a lot are:

www.sowashco.k12.mn.us/ro
www.aaamath.com
www.aplusmath.com
www.compasslearningodyssey.com

Here are some math games that need very few supplies:

 The Game of Pig (Grades 3–8)

Math concepts: This game for two or more players gives students practice with mental addition and experience with thinking strategically.

The object: to be the first to score 100 points or more.

How to play: Players take turns rolling two dice and following these rules:

1. On a turn, a player may roll the dice as many times as he or she wants, mentally keeping a running total of the sums that come up. When the player stops rolling, he or she records the total and adds it to the scores from previous rounds.

2. But, if a 1 comes up on one of the dice before the player decides to stop rolling, the player scores 0 for that round and it's the next player's turn.

3. Even worse, if a 1 comes up on both dice, not only does the turn end, but the player's entire accumulated total returns to 0.

After students have had the chance to play the game for several days, have a class discussion about the strategies they used. You may want to list their ideas and have them test different strategies against each other to try and determine the best way to play.