Multiplication, division, and book reports

This week, we continue with our unit on multiplication and division. Almost all of our fourth graders are now multiplication math fact masters, and many third graders are close to also reaching this goal. Please keep in mind that the emphasis of this unit is on understanding what multiplication and division mean. The children are being asked to make sense of different multiplication and division situations. They will develop their own ways for thinking about and writing about these situations. As we continue on with multiplication and division, you can help your child in the following ways:

*Think about when you use multiplication and division in your everyday life and enlist your child's help in solving these problems. For example, how many people are we expecting for a party? How many cookies do we need if we want to give each person four cookies? Or, if you're going on a 3-day trip and need to travel 950 miles, about how many miles will you need to travel each day?

*Look for items around your house that are arranged in arrays (rows and columns), such as tiles on the ceiling or floor. Talk with your child about ways of figuring out the total number.

*Encourage your child to explain his or her strategies for multiplying and dividing numbers. Emphasis during this unit will be on thinking hard and reasoning carefully to solve mathematical problems. Students will be encouraged to develop more than one way to solve a problem and to use methods that are based on understanding numbers and their relationships. Some of these methods may not be the ones you learned in school, but you may recognize some of them as methods you use in your daily life. One of the most important things you can do is to show genuine interest in the ways your child solves problems, even if they are different from your own.

As always, if your child ever gets stuck on a problem, please have them bring it in so we can discuss it as a class. The purpose of homework is not to cause stress or frustration, so if it ever gets to this point, please assure your child that they can bring it in to class and finish it with me.

Tomorrow, new book report guidelines will be given to each student. For this book report, students choose a book that they recommend for others to read. Part of the book report will consist of providing an explanation of why others should read the book and creating a book cover that gives others an idea of what the book is about. Each book that is recommended by the students will be obtained and be placed in the brand new "3/4 L recommends..." section of our class library. Please check the website tomorrow for more details for this book report.

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Posted on February 1, 2007 10:34 AM | Permalink