Doubles Plus and other shortcuts

One of the things that we must help children do is recognize when to use a particular strategy. For the Doubles Plus One strategy, tell the children "when the numbers are next door neighbors (the numbers are consecutive like 6 and 7) then we can use the doubles plus one strategy."

Doubles Plus Two
If a child is faced with a problem like 5 + 7, think through the same steps as Doubles Plus One except add 2 instead of one. This works for facts that have number that are separated by two.

When helping a child to recognize when to use this strategy tell them to use it "when the numbers are NOT next door neighbors, but two doors down from each other."

Plus 9 Shortcut
If your child is learning a fact like 9 + 5 these are the steps to think through:
* Think 10 + 5 = (which is much easier to add)
* Now minus 1 (Think 15 - 1 + 14)
* Now say the fact: 9 + 5 = 14
* Remind your child that you added 10 + 5 instead of 9 + 5. That's one more than you started with, so you have to take that one away to get to the correct answer.

Minus 9 Shortcut
If your child is trying 17 - 9, these are the steps to think through:
* Change the 9 to 10 ( Think 17 - 10 = 7, which is much easier to subtract)
* Now add 1 ( Think 7 + 1 = 8)
* Now say the fact: 17 - 9 = 8
* Now remind your child that you subtracted 17 - 10 instead of 17 - 9 . That's taking one more away then you started with, so you have to add that one back to get the right answer.

Minus 8 shortcut
If your child is learning 15 - 8, these are the steps to think through:
* Change the 8 to 10 (Think 15 - 10, which is much easier to subtract)
* Now add 2 (Think 5 + 2 =7)
* Say the whole fact now: 15 - 8 = 7
* Remind your child that you took two extra away when you changed to 8 to 10 in the first step, and you must add it back to get the right answer.

What is Multiplication?

Keith Devlin claims

“Multiplication simply is not repeated addition, and telling young pupils it is inevitably leads to problems when they subsequently learn that it is not.”

http://letsplaymath.net/2008/07/28/whats-wrong-with-repeated-addition/

Addition requires identical units.

The sum must always have the same units as the addends.

Multiplication requires different units.

The product does not have the same units as either the multiplier or the multiplicand.

    .

Multiplication: multiplier X multiplicand = product. 

The multiplier and multiplicand have different names, even though many of us have trouble remembering which is which.

• multiplier= “how many or how much”
• multiplicand= the size of the “unit” or “group”

classroom management

A good article about "classroom management".
Some of these ideas may help volunteers at their child's school.

http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/classroom_qa_with_larry_ferlazzo/2015/01/response_goal_of_classroom_management_is_to_have_power_with_not_over_kids.html

Common Core resources

http://commoncoretools.files.wordpress.com

police were called to a third-grade class party

http://www.philly.com/philly/education/20160629_Why_police_were_called_to_a_South_Jersey_third_grade_class_party.html

On June 16, police were called to an unlikely scene: an end-of-the-year class party at the William P. Tatem Elementary School in Collingswood.

A third grader had made a comment about the brownies being served to the class. After another student exclaimed that the remark was "racist," the school called the Collingswood Police Department, according to the mother of the boy who made the comment.

The police officer spoke to the student, who is 9, said the boy's mother, Stacy dos Santos, and local authorities.

Dos Santos said that the school overreacted and that her son made a comment about snacks, not skin color.

"He said they were talking about brownies. . . . Who exactly did he offend?" dos Santos said.

The boy's father was contacted by Collingswood police later in the day. Police said the incident had been referred to the New Jersey Division of Child Protection and Permanency. The student stayed home for his last day of third grade.

Dos Santos said that her son was "traumatized," and that she hopes to send him to a different Collingswood public school in the fall.

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Why?

According to district officials, the Camden County Prosecutor’s Office (CCPO), has stripped school staff of its authority to investigate any incident that could potentially be deemed a criminal violation, instead ordering the involvement of local law enforcement. The impact of that edict has even kept teachers, aides, and administrators from communicating with children directly about behaviors they may have typically corrected on the spot.

“Their claim is when we investigate on the school disciplinary code, [law enforcement] investigate[s]on the criminal code,” said Collingswood Superintendent Scott Oswald. “If we do ours first, it could interfere with theirs.”

Oswald said that standard has forbidden school staff from doing much more than calling the police for every infraction, no matter how minor, rather than risk failing to follow the statute. For the past several weeks, the first call home about something as routine as a scuffle on the elementary school playground has been made by a Collingswood police officer instead of a representative of the school.

“We were told that if we were deemed to be interfering with an investigation there would be potential criminal consequences for us,” Oswald said, including criminal indictment of school staff or the loss of state licenses.

http://www.njpen.com/police-investigations-mandated-for-discipline-issues-at-collingswood-schools/

XtraMath and touch screens

XtraMath is a program used at my daughter's school to help students remember the answers to number facts quickly. My daughter was using it on a laptop and typing numbers on a QWERTY keyboard was a source of many mistakes for her.

You can purchase an iPad or Android version of XtraMath for an additional fee. Or you can run the chrome web browser as you would on a PC, except the keyboard on the touch screen works. By using the on-screen numeric keypad, my daughter was able to complete a session with no mistakes.

free minecraft server

I am running a free minecraft server for classmates of my daughter.

If you are the parent of an MSJE student, send me an email with the subject "minecraft server" and I'll send you information on how to access it. (if you don't know what MSJE is, you aren't)

There is no official affiliation with the school.