New Routines: Time Test Tuesday & Weekly Words Wednesday

2017 brings a few new routines.

Time Test Tuesday & Math Flashcards Each Monday, your child will bring home a new sheet of weekly basic math fact flashcards.  Our first set of Math flashcards (doubles facts) will go home today, Monday, February 6th.  Please see that your child cuts these cards out and practices them nightly.  Also, please be sure your child does NOT write the answers on the front of the flashcards.  They are meant to be used repeatedly for quick, mental recall to develop automaticity.  They are welcome to write the answers on the back if they desire.  We will also take time daily to practice our basic math facts daily at school, too. Then, each Tuesday, students will complete a three-minute time test focusing on memorizing their basic math facts. As students score a 90%, or higher, they will move onto more challenging math facts.  We have spent the first half of the school year working on understanding relationships between numbers and have developed strategies to solve these problems.  Now, we move to focus on automaticity.  The goal is to memorize all our basic addition and subtraction facts so that we can readily, and easily, solve harder problems as we move into two- and three-digit addition and subtraction (with carrying and borrowing with negative and positive numbers.. Weekly Word Flashcards At the end of January, your child began the study of sight words ("Weekly Words").  Each week, the Cottontails will study two, three, or four sight words during our "Weekly Word" focus. These "Weekly Words" will be listed in the Monday row of each week's Cottontail Communicator.  Today (Monday, February 6th), your child will take home the "Weekly Words" we will be study over the next several weeks. Please have your child cut out these sight words, put their initials on the back, and practice them nightly. We will practice these words daily at school, too.  Based on pre-assessments, some Kindergarteners may assess out of the need to study Weekly Words. If this is the case I will communicate this home to you. Together we will discuss that sight words are words our brains should "just know".  Often times, sight words do not follow the English language rules and just need to be memorize.  We will understand that if we can learn these words it will give our brains the chance to focus on more challenging words.