***If you haven't watched this video yet, watch it!  It will help when you are trying to help your child with homework this week.***

We worked with commas in lists and dates last week. This week we will work with commas in addresses.  Be on the lookout for opportunities to show your child how to correctly use commas in this way.  We have yet to talk about commas separating clauses in a sentence.  However, if you are helping them with work, start showing them were to put those commas too.  Point them out in books as you are reading.  This is a big skill that will take years to master.  We are laying the foundation right now.

We are going to start strdying hard to memorize basic math facts.  This week's goal is +9.  Watch the video and find some good ways to practice with your child.  Make mini challenges.  Time the math pages and try to beat your record.  Race your child.  Check out some math apps or website and practice just +9s.  Here's a video showing the +9 trick.  

May 11th we are going to watch Stunt Dogs at Laxson with 3rd grade.  Put it on your calendar.

Addition with Regrouping tests Topic 8 tests are in the Monday folders today.  Over all it went pretty well.  There were some teachable mistakes.  Please review the test with your child.  One of the homework tasks this week is to review the math test and write a note to me, telling what they should have done for each question they missed.  (Just write it on the test next to the problem.  ie: "I should have written the problem out, but I tried to do it in my head." or "I miss counted." or "I forgot to regroup.")  I made some note to talk about if I talked to the student and found out something interesting.  Bottom line - these students are great at adding.  Test taking is hard.  We need to work on precision, using available tools and setting up problems.

This week marks the beginning of two units on Subtraction with Regrouping.  One thing that will help your student at this point is memorizing math facts.  There are tons of ways to do this.  Flashcards, games, online games, apps.  Start working a little each day to memorize those facts.

Students will begin working on a Scrapbook about their famous person this week.  It is a really neat project.  They are separated facts into the follow categories; childhood information, education information, hard times and challenges, why they are famous, how they impacted our country and lesson's learned from this individual.  Now they have to fill out the scrapbook using this information.  Here's the fun part - the scrapbook pages do not have the same titles.  They are; life history, interests, claim to fame and contributions to society.  Students quickly realize that they have to use facts from different areas on their research to fill out each scrapbook page.  They also notice that their friends may be putting facts together in different ways.  There is no formula, because the famous people's lives were so different.  It's great to watch them critically think and share ideas with each other.  Parent helpers will enjoy working with the students.  

Start thinking about those costumes for you famous person.  Let me know if you have any questions or need some help.  We will film the week of Feb. 8-10.  I will let everyone know what day we will film each student.  Students can come in their costume on their film day.