Week 7 and Math Test

Dear Parents,

I hope you are all well. This coming week we have some exciting things going on in both math and science.

In math, we will be transition to the portion of our curriculum where students have online homework in the RM system. I have received many questions from parents and students about when this would occur, so I gather this is a much-anticipated event. Students will be expected to log into the same RM accounts they use at school on computers at home and work for 20 minutes each night in the “Guided Study” portion of the curriculum. I will send more specific directions on how this is to be accomplished on Monday.

 If your students has absolutely no way of accessing the program at home (i.e., you do not own a computer, or you are not able to afford internet) please let me or Mrs. Washburn know ASAP so we can make arrangements for your scholar to complete their homework. In the past, some families have had success with using the RM program on a smart phone or iPad, so that could be an option at home as well.

Each week there will be a point in the curriculum BEYOND WHICH STUDENTS SHOULD NOT GO. We love it when students are enthusiastic for math, but if they get too far ahead of the full class instruction they often end up confused. As a result, they get less out of the online lesson than they would have if they had waited. When students are ahead, we ask them to work in Wall of Mastery, which is another portion of the curriculum where they can work on harder problems similar to the ones they have done already. I will explain how parents can check what lesson their student is on in the directions sent out on Monday.

This coming week, students should not go beyond the lesson “Equations.” They may complete it, but they should not go beyond it.

In science, we are transitioning to our study of atoms and states of matter (i.e., solid, liquid, gas). We do not intend to teach a thorough chemistry course in fourth grade. (They will have one in fifth grade.) Rather, we are studying atoms and states of matter because they are involved in a number of the other branches of science we teach in fourth grade, such as electricity and geology.

The definition of atom that we give students will be, “An atom is the smallest part of matter.” Now, there is some qualification to that definition; an atom is the smallest part of matter that can exist for the matter to still be the same kind of thing. For example, an atom of hydrogen is the smallest part of hydrogen; you can split that atom, but you will no longer have hydrogen. You will have disconnected ions and an explosion! We will be discussing this qualification in class, but we do not want to put it in the formal definition we give the students because too many words can be confusing.

Regarding our recent science work on graphs, I was in error when I told students line graphs had to start from 0 even if the first point is not at zero.  This was not something we discussed in class, but it was something for which I took half a point off on a number of homework assignments. Of course, half a point will not make much difference to most students’ grades, but if you would like me to fix it, have your students bring back any mismarked papers, and I will correct the grade in my gradebook.

One more thing: We have a math test coming up this Friday. The main focus of the test will be column addition and subtraction and addition and word problems. I will write a quick study guide and post it beneath my signature on this post. When I have done this, I will send a quick message through Jupiter Ed so you will know to look for it.

These are all the notes I have for you this week! If you have any questions, comments or concerns, please send me a message through your Jupiter Ed account.

Sincerely,

Miss Wycklendt 

Column Addition and Subtraction Test Study Guide

1.       Students should be able to identify the parts of an addition problem. The numbers being added are called summands, and the answer to the addition is the sum. (For example, in the problem 4 + 5 =9, 4 and 5 are summands and 9 is their sum.

2.       Students should be able to identify parts of a subtraction problem. The greatest number and the one from which we subtract is called the minuend. The numbering being taken away/subtracted is called the subtrahend. The answer to the subtraction problem is called the difference. (For example, in the problem 250 – 70 = 180, 250 is the minuend because it is the greatest number and therefore the number form which we must subtract. 70 is the subtrahend because it is being subtracted/taken away. 180 is the difference because the answer to the subtraction problem is 180.)

3.       Students should be able to correctly identify parts of addition and subtraction problems even when the answer is given first (as in 56 = 60 - 4 or 450 = 50 + 400). They should also be able to identify parts of addition and subtraction problems when those problems are written in columns.

4.       Students should be able to perform column addition with and without regrouping (also called carrying).

5.       Students should be able to perform column subtraction with and without regrouping (also called borrowing).

6.       WARNING: A surprisingly large number of students at this age have a tendency to simply invert the numbers of column subtraction problems to avoid regrouping/borrowing. For example, when given a problem like 423 – 179 in a column, they will do their ones column and write 3 – 9 = 6. Then they will do their tens’ column and write 2 -7 =5.  Then they will do their hundreds’ column and write 4 -3 = 1, thus producing the answer 156. In my experience, this seems to happen for 2 main reasons: A. The student does not understand how to regroup/borrow. B. Much more often, the student is not comfortable with the process and so tries to avoid it by inverting the numbers. This usually means they don’t fully understand that you cannot subtract a greater number from a lesser number. They don’t fully understand that 9 – 6 DOES NOT EQUAL 6 – 9. (In this case, I usually give the students concrete objects to think about. If I have 6 candy bars, can you eat 9 of them?) For that reason, they don’t always recognize the situations in which borrowing is necessary.

7.       Given the above warning, please check with your student to make sure they know how to borrow and recognize when it is necessary to borrow instead of trying to mentally invert the digits of the column subtraction problem. Even if you are fairly confident they can do column subtraction with borrowing, please check. You would be surprised how common the above errors are at this age.

8.       Students should be able to perform one and two step addition word problems using language like “more,” “total,” “altogether,” and “combined.”

9.       Students should be able to perform one and two step subtraction word problems with words like “How many more?” “How many less/fewer?” “How much cheaper?” and “What is the difference?” (For example: John has 98 apples and Jane has 70. How many more apples does John have than Jane?)

10.   Students should be able to perform two step word problems where one step is addition and the other is subtraction. (For example, Taylor bought a bike for $250 and a football for $175 less. How much dud she spend altogether? ) WARNING: This is another concept that even very good students may find tricky.