Monday, October 03, 2005

Times Tables

A most pleasant day! The students were just wonderful.

We began reading one of my favorite Open Court stories today, "How Dog Outwitted Leopard." This Ugandan folktale explains how and why dogs decided to keep company with human beings. The students understood the subtle point of the tale: dogs are just plain smarter than people because they get us to do everything for them! I certainly work long hours so my dog can have a nice place to live.

We started multiplication today. Students now cover a good deal of this in second grade, and so the basic idea that multiplication is repeated addition is not new to them. But the struggle this year will be moving from that fairly easy insight to real mastery of the facts. Five minutes every day of flash cards will make this happen better than anything else. It will be easy to get students to a point where they can figure out the right answer if given sufficient time. But the amazing short cut that multiplication creates, and the way that it also simplifies what we do in mental math and estimation -- well, none of that works unless they really know the facts COLD.

Homework: (1) Study spelling words. (2) Science questions, page A47, numbers 1-4 only. (3) Math, page 116-117. We started this one in class, and discussed all the problems on the page which have caused confusion in the past.

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