Math

This week is Spring Break around our area. Our kids have already had a week off while Cam and I were on our trip so we're still working this week. We do not have our co-op homework to do so it's a lighter load than usual. God is so good to me b/c He reminds me to constantly evaluate why I'm doing what I'm doing. I think going through the National Boards for Professional Teachers process definitely urged me to the more of a reflective teacher. WHY am I doing what I am doing? If it is not for student achievement/growth then maybe it's just busy work and has no place. I've started doing some unit studies with the kids. We are having so much fun learning about Australia (I'll post more on this later:). The boys are using Math U See for their math curriculum and I really like it. I also like to do small units with them in Math. This week we are exploring 2d and 3d shapes. They've been introduced to these before but we've never looked at the nets. They loved seeing the different nets and trying to guess which figure it would make. I then took the nets away and they had to draw some for different shapes. I printed a couple of sheets for Piper so she could be involved in our lesson and had Park grade her work. 

Andrew is in 3rd grade and has learned his multiplication facts. He's always been good at math. I want to be sure that we are not stopping on the lower level of Bloom's Taxonomy. (I would actually LOVE to get with some local mommas and talk Blooms!! Share different ideas and encourage one another to do a little extra leg work to make sure what we're preparing for our kids is for their best achievement.) I've been really trying to create new ways to look at a problem. I love Math U See b/c it really digs deep on concepts. This year he has learned multiplication facts, several digit by double digit multiplying and he is working on factoring now. He can easily spout off the factors of 20 but I want him to fully understand the concept. I made him a few dot pages of different numbers to factor. Since we were doing factors I thought I would go ahead and introduce him to prime and composite numbers.