Term 2, Week 7

Hi All,

We're definitely on the downhill slide to the holidays now - 4 weeks left!

Homework this week will be a worksheet, reading as usual and if you can manage it some revision of basic facts/times tables would be great.  I'd like to stress the fact that for your children to be relaxed about maths and feel capable, it helps if they have an understanding of what they are learning.  Using counters or other small objects to show how 13+4 = 17 OR 4 x (lots of) 3 = 12 can be more beneficial and cause less anxiety about maths than rote learning your facts with no understanding.

If you're interested an excellent website to look over is https://www.youcubed.org/
There's a page for parents, one for students and loads of real life maths activities that can help engage your child with maths and see themselves as an able maths student.

Here are some ways you can help with your child's maths at home.
1.  Encourage children to play maths puzzles and games
2. Always be encouraging and never tell children they are wrong when they give an incorrect answer - try to follow their logic or ask them to explain how they got their answer.  For example, if your child multiplies 3 by 4 and gets 7, say 'Oh, I see what you're thinking; you're using what you know about addition to add 3 and 4.  When we multiply we have 4 groups of 3.'
3.  Never treat maths as a race - this can encourage the anxiety children feel because they aren't fast enough - understanding a concept is far more important than getting the answer in a hurry.
4.  Try to never say to your child 'I was bad at maths at school.'  This is almost giving them a license to being bad at maths too.
5.  Encourage maths sense - talk to your children about every day maths.  Get them to think about numbers.  Help them see that if we have 29 + 56, it might be easier to add 1 to 29 to get 30 and remove 1 from 56 to get 55.  30 + 55 is an easier problem to solve and all we had to do was add a number and take one away.

The above is an example of every day maths for the husbands out there! 😀

GOLF
This Thursday will be our first golf lesson with Sharelle from Kelly Sports.  Please send your child to school in their sports uniform - remember to layer up the merino/thermals to keep them warm.

That's it folks.  Next week Room 5 will be taking the parish mass on Wednesday morning, please feel free to come and join us.  

Have a great week,

Mrs Lyon