The Best-made Plans.....

I was reminded this week that I can only introduce and practice as much as the class can handle in one week.  We can only work as quickly through as many skills and concepts as the kids are comfortable with. So, it didn't feel like we got very far last week, but we did make some progress in our work with measurement. We also had a number of people missing each day. 'Tis the season of colds and flu and other life commitments.

So, this week we will spend a little more time on measurement, specifically practicing figuring out the measurement of something when a ruler is not lined up to the 0 point. We will also look at personal benchmarks or referents for 1 cm so kids will have those in mind when they are estimating the length of something in centimetres.

We will look at subtraction and finally watch that video about subtraction with regrouping that I shared with you last week. Here it is again:

Subtraction with Regrouping video

Regrouping when subtracting (or adding) is not new to students in Grade 3, but it is a concept that a lot of students struggle with. Practicing regrouping with both operations will be an on-going weekly task.

My plan (promise!) is that I will introduce multiplication to the class on Thursday, January 31st. Students have been asking when we're going to start multiplication. They are primed and keen, so I am hopeful that learning about multiplication will be fun and meet their expectations! The first step will be to show them that multiplication is simply repeated addition. As we move forward, I'll share with you exactly which multiplication facts students will need to know by the end of the school year. Don't worry, it's not the full 12 x 12 multiplication table like I had to know in Grade 3! But, if your child loves a challenge and wants to learn them, please don't hold them back.

I am hoping for a full week of school this week with no cancellations or early dismissals. One-hour delays don't affect our math class, but cancellations and early dismissals do.

I've added some new games to the Websites tab, including Puzzle Pics Subtraction Facts (facts from 10 - 20), Puzzle Pics Subtraction to 100, and Island Chase Subtraction (facts to 12). All of the links I'm providing will give your child excellent practice with the concepts and skills we are working on while others are a good refresher for things we have already covered.

Have a great week everyone!

Measurement Continued and Trying Out Subtraction

We began measurement last week looking at measuring with centimetres. This week we will spend more time becoming more familiar with recognizing how big (or small!) a centimetre is.  We will also continue practicing measuring using a ruler.  More practice at home using a ruler or measuring tape would be helpful. Please remind your child that when they measure they should start from the 0 point on a ruler, or if they choose a different starting point, they must count the number of hops they make from one centimetre to another to find out the actual measure.  And, they must remember to say (and record when writing a measurement down) the unit of measure, ie., centimetres. If they measure something and just say or write "6", that's not a measurement. They must say the units: 6 cm. I will be talking about that this week in class.  Please check out the measuring activities available in the "Websites" tab above.

Continuing to practice subtraction facts will be important as well as we begin to review subtraction and subtraction with regrouping.  In Grade 3 we are responsible for addition and subtraction of numbers to 1000.  As we look at subtraction, please do not forget to continue practicing addition facts as well since one of the mental math strategies for subtraction is "think addition".

If you click on the link below, you can watch a video that demonstrates subtraction with regrouping with numbers and Base Ten blocks.  Watching this several times and talking about it with you may be helpful to your child.

Subtraction with Regrouping


Keep up with skip counting practice as well since we'll be starting multiplication soon :-)

Skip count by 2, 5, and 10 starting at any multiple of each number (ex., for 2: 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, etc.; for 5: 5, 10, 15, 20, etc.)

Have a great week!

Introduction to Measuring with Centimetres

On Friday, we took a look at rulers and looked for things in the classroom that are about one centimetre (cm) long, wide or high.  Some students noticed that their little pencil sharpeners are about 1 cm high; their pinky fingers are about 1cm wide; some of their reading books are about 1cm thick; and their white eraser is about 1cm thick.  These are important observations as students are expected to be able to select and identify object that measure about 1cm. They will be expected to do the same for metres. All of this will help develop their measurement estimation skills.

For now we will focus on measuring to the nearest centimetre. Here are links to some online activities that will give some practice, but real practice at home would be even better :-)

Topmarks Measuring in Centimetres

Measure It!



Please continue practicing basic facts.

As well, keep up addition skills with 2- and 3-digit numbers, especially those problems requiring regrouping.

Once we get some practice in with measuring we will move onto perimeter where we will continue with addition.

Subtraction will follow and then, what everyone has been waiting for: multiplication!

Have a great week!

January Blast

We're back and we're back at it.

This month our focus will be:

• addition and subtraction with and without regrouping with answers to 1000 (limited to 1, 2, and 3-digit numerals)
• measuring length using centimetres and metres and estimating lengths using centimetre and metre referents
• calculating perimeter
• introduction to multiplication

That's a lot, so any additional support or practice you can provide at home would be appreciated. Students will be given nightly homework, mostly in the way of math facts to practice, so if you or someone else at home could spend a few minutes (even just 5 minutes) doing this, I'd be grateful. The kids did a great job when I asked them their doubles facts on Friday :-)

To begin this month, we'll be continuing the work we began in December with addition and subtraction. Regrouping problems always pose the greatest challenge for students. Before the Christmas break students practiced modelling the process using Base Ten blocks. We'll do more of that as we transition into working without Base Ten blocks. This isn't anything new to students as it is part of the Grade 2 curriculum as well, we'll just be starting to work with bigger numbers.

Below are links to two videos from the Khan Academy talking through the thinking involved in solving 2-digit by 2-digit addition problems with and without regrouping. We will watch these in class, but watching them at home and talking about the math involved should help all of this make more sense.

One note about these videos....the person explaining the processes mentions "carrying" and "borrowing". Though those are the terms I was taught in school, we no longer use those because they don't really show a real understanding of what is happening to the numbers we're working with. "Regrouping" is the term that is used now. We regroup our ones to become tens when we have more than 9 ones when adding, such as in 13 + 9. We regroup our tens so we will have more ones to work with to be able to subtract, such as in 54 - 27.

Khan Academy 2-digit addition without regrouping

Khan Academy 2-digit addition with regrouping

Have a great week!