The Rookery

For the past few weeks we've been working to hone our computational skills.  We want students to be proficient enough with an algorithm and operation that they use it effortlessly in problem solving situations.  For example, if multiplication is not yet second nature for you, you will probably approach a problem like "I drink 13 glasses of water a day for a week, how many glasses do I drink in a week" as an addition problem, not as a multiplication problem.

Can you get there by using addition?  Sure.  But it's not the most efficient method and, once students understand a concept like multiplication, it's important to firm up their skills so that it's a concept they actually use.  Your child might have been working on subtraction, multi-digit multiplication or long division.  Ask them about their work and then support their efforts to use their algorithms more efficiently by helping them have instant recall on the "basic facts" in that operation.  Our goal is to have all fourth graders achieve automaticity in addition, subtraction within 20 (i.e. 18-7=  ) and multiplication to 10.

If you want to brush up on the algorithms we teach (and learn why we may use algorithms that look different than the ones you learned in school) you can read our Prairie Creek Math Facts blog.