This week, we will be continuing our work with 3D shapes. As a reminder, your student will learn that three-dimensional shapes have unique characteristics, such as being able to roll, slide, and/or stack. These characteristics depend on whether the shape has curved surfaces, flat surfaces, or both. Your student will then classify three-dimensional shapes as cubes, spheres, cones, or cylinders.

To get hands-on work with three-dimensional shapes, your student builds a cube with straws and clay balls and molds cylinders, cones, and spheres out of clay. Finally your student uses positional terms, such as above, below, behind, beside, in front of, and next to, to describe the locations of objects that are shaped like cubes, spheres, cones, and cylinders.

Try these activities to help your student learn about three-dimensional shapes.

• Work with your student to assemble a shape museum on a shelf or table. Help your student look around your home for examples of cubes, spheres, cylinders, and cones to label and display as your museum specimens. For example, you might find a tissue box for a cube, a ball for a sphere, a pen for a cylinder, and an hourglass for two cones.
• Together, enjoy watching a hockey game and a soccer game to observe how a cylinder (hockey puck) slides and a sphere (soccer ball) rolls.
• At mealtimes, look for and talk about vegetable shapes: pea spheres, green bean and carrot cylinders, carrot and potato cubes, and carrot-tip cones. Just this once, play with food by using a spoon to quickly pat a scoop (sphere) of mashed potatoes or ice cream into a cube, cylinder, or cone.

In the previous chapter, your student worked with two-dimensional shapes. Your student begins this chapter by examining the difference between two-dimensional shapes and three-dimensional shapes. Your student learns that three-dimensional shapes have unique characteristics, such as being able to roll, slide, and/or stack. These characteristics depend on whether the shape has curved surfaces, flat surfaces, or both. Your student will then classify three-dimensional shapes as cubes, spheres, cones, or cylinders.

To get hands-on work with three-dimensional shapes, your student builds a cube with straws and clay balls and molds cylinders, cones, and spheres out of clay. Finally your student uses positional terms, such as above, below, behind, beside, in front of, and next to, to describe the locations of objects that are shaped like cubes, spheres, cones, and cylinders.

Try these activities to help your student learn about three-dimensional shapes.

• Work with your student to assemble a shape museum on a shelf or table. Help your student look around your home for examples of cubes, spheres, cylinders, and cones to label and display as your museum specimens. For example, you might find a tissue box for a cube, a ball for a sphere, a pen for a cylinder, and an hourglass for two cones.
• Together, enjoy watching a hockey game and a soccer game to observe how a cylinder (hockey puck) slides and a sphere (soccer ball) rolls.
• At mealtimes, look for and talk about vegetable shapes: pea spheres, green bean and carrot cylinders, carrot and potato cubes, and carrot-tip cones. Just this once, play with food by using a spoon to quickly pat a scoop (sphere) of mashed potatoes or ice cream into a cube, cylinder, or cone.

We will be ending our 11th chapter this week and taking our post test on Friday. This week we will continue to identify two dimensional shapes by building and creating our own. This will support your students' understanding of sides and vertices. You can continue to support your students learning by playing some of these fun activities: 

• Play a guessing game. Take turns. One player secretly thinks of an object within view that has the shape of a triangle, rectangle, square, circle, or hexagon, for example, a dinner plate in the shape of a circle. The other player tries to find out what the secret object and shape are by asking only yes or no questions, for example, “Is the object hanging on the wall? Does it have a square shape?” Set a limit of 20 questions for each player's turn. 
• If you have access to old magazines, work with your student to cut out photos of objects that are shaped like triangles, rectangles, squares, circles, and hexagons. For example, you might find a photo of a building that has rectangular windows and/or a triangular roof, or you might find an advertisement for a circular watch or ring. Suggest that your student trace over the shapes with a marker or crayon to make them stand out. Then sort the photos by shape. 
• Have your student draw two-dimensional shapes by tracing objects. For example, your student might trace around the bottom of a can to draw a circle, or around the base of a box to draw a rectangle.

This week, we will be starting our 11th unit in math, and this unit is all about Identifying 2 Dimensional Shapes! At first your student explores shape attributes, such as curves, sides, and vertices. Then your student uses those attributes to define shapes. For example, your student defines a triangle as a shape having three sides and three vertices. Then your student sorts and classifies shapes by identifying which of several shapes is a triangle, rectangle, square, circle, or hexagon.  

The vocabulary words for the chapter are: side, curve, triangle, rectangle, square, hexagon, circle, vertex, vertices, two-dimensional shape, and sort. 

Have fun with the following activities to practice with two-dimensional shapes: 

• Play a guessing game. Take turns. One player secretly thinks of an object within view that has the shape of a triangle, rectangle, square, circle, or hexagon, for example, a dinner plate in the shape of a circle. The other player tries to find out what the secret object and shape are by asking only yes or no questions, for example, “Is the object hanging on the wall? Does it have a square shape?” Set a limit of 20 questions for each player's turn. 
• If you have access to old magazines, work with your student to cut out photos of objects that are shaped like triangles, rectangles, squares, circles, and hexagons. For example, you might find a photo of a building that has rectangular windows and/or a triangular roof, or you might find an advertisement for a circular watch or ring. Suggest that your student trace over the shapes with a marker or crayon to make them stand out. Then sort the photos by shape.  
• Have your student draw two-dimensional shapes by tracing objects. For example, your student might trace around the bottom of a can to draw a circle, or around the base of a box to draw a rectangle.

This week we will finish our chapter 10, your students were practicing counting numbers within 100 by using tens and ones. For example, the number 43 is four tens and three ones. On Tuesday, we will take our end of chapter assessment. The rest of the week we will be reviewing addition and subtraction. 

This week, we will introduce chapter 10. In chapter 10, students will be working towards counting to 100! First, we will begin by counting to 30, then to 50, and then to 100! We will also work towards counting by 5s and 10s, to make counting objects quicker. For example, if there are 43 objects, they can count 10, 20, 30, 40, 41, 42, to 43! 

Use the activities below to help your student practice and use numbers through 100. 

• Have your student count by ones to 30 on a yardstick or tape measure, and to 50 or 100 on a tape measure or by reading page numbers in a book. 
• Count by ones as high as you can by taking turns saying the number that comes next. For example, you say, "one." Your student says, "two." You say, "three." Your student says "four," and so on. Vary the game by counting by tens ("ten," "twenty," "thirty," . . .).

Because of the short week this week, we are going to be taking some time to review the things that we have learned in the last couple of weeks instead of moving on in our curriculum. Your students will be completing math projects using their knowledge that we have picked up so far this year (decomposing teen numbers, addition and subtraction etc.). Once we come back after parent teacher conferences, we will be working on counting to 100, and being able to start and stop counting anywhere up to 100. For example, being able to start counting at a number like 56, and stop counting at a number like 78 instead of just counting from 0-100 every time. 

We will begin chapter 9 in our Big Ideas curriculum! In this chapter, your student will use the number twenty, 20, to describe amounts and also will review the numbers that are less than twenty. 

Use the activities below to help your student use numbers through 20. 

• Together, count objects on a walk through your neighborhood, such as leaves on the ground, cars in a parking lot, and cracks in the sidewalk. 
• Choose a number from 10 through 20. Have a scavenger hunt to find that number of objects. For example, if you choose 14, you and your student might count 14 paper clips in a drawer or 14 sandwich bags in a package.

This week in math, we will be finishing out our topic 8, which is all about teen numbers, and beginning our 9th topic, which is Counting and Comparing numbers to 20. 

In this chapter, your student will use the number twenty, 20, to describe amounts and also will review the numbers that are less than twenty. At first your student will show how many objects there are by coloring boxes in ten frames, for example, color twenty boxes for twenty pencils. Then your student will count objects and write the number. Finally your student will identify a group of objects with a given number of objects.

After your student practices writing and counting to or from numbers 11 through 20, your student will compare numbers through 20.

For more detailed information about this chapter's topics, see the Learning Targets and Success Criteria on the next page. Use the activities below to help your student use numbers through 20.

•       Together, count objects on a walk through your neighborhood, such as leaves on the ground, cars in a parking lot, and cracks in the sidewalk.
•       Choose a number from 10 through 20. Have a scavenger hunt to find that number of objects. For example, if you choose 14, you and your student might count 14 paper clips in a drawer or 14 sandwich bags in a package.
•       To practice saying numbers in order, have your student use the numbers on a clock face or foot ruler to count to twelve and back. Have your student use the numbers on a tape measure or yard stick to count to 20 and back.
•       Apply numbers through 20 to data collection. Have your student help record the number of objects in a closet or drawer. Discuss what categories of objects to count. For example, count pencils or pens, or cans of beans or peas, or black socks or blue socks. Then guide your student to draw a mark for each object. When you have finished tallying, ask your student to write the numbers of marks for each object. Talk about whether each number is equal to, greater than, or less than another number.

This week, we will finish chapter 8, which is representing and understanding numbers eleven through nineteen. In this chapter, your students wrote teen numbers and saw these numbers represented as ten and then some more (ex: 14 is a group of ten and 4 more). Then we wrote an addition sentence to match. (ex: 10 + 4 = 14) 

Below is a reminder of the activities you can at home: 

• Give your student up to 19 pennies or other small objects to count. Have your student write the number, for example, 12. Then ask your student to verify that 12 is correct by grouping ten pennies together to see if there are 2 extra pennies, making 12
• Take turns. One player shows ten fingers and the other person shows up to nine fingers. The player holding up ten fingers names the total number of fingers showing.
• Make a number book using a notebook or by attaching ten sheets of paper with staples or a paper clip. Help your student number the pages 11 through 19. On each page, have your student draw as many objects (or dots) as that page's number. 
• If you have access to magazines, invite your student to find pictures of objects that illustrate one or more of the numbers to 19. Use these activities as often as you would like. You might start by focusing on the numbers 11 and 12 and gradually work your way up to 19. 

This week, we will continue to work on chapter 8! As our last Edlio post shared, we will be using the numbers 11 through 19 to describe amounts. At this grade level, your student learns to think of a group of ten objects as ten ones. This prepares your student for next year's study of place value when your student begins to think of ten ones as one ten. 

Please check out last week’s post for some activities to help your student practice and understand numbers to nineteen.

During Math time this week, we will be starting Unit 8 in our math curriculum. In this chapter, your student uses the numbers 11 through 19 to describe amounts. At first your student identifies the number of objects in a group by counting by ones: one, two, three . . . Then your student learns to count in a different way by first identifying a group of ten within the group and using a ten frame along with a five or ten frame to display the ten ones and the number of extra objects. Finally, your student records the number in an addition sentence as 10 + a number, for example, 14 = 10 + 4.

Some easy games you can play with your students at home are:

• Give your student up to 19 pennies or other small objects to count. Have your student write the number, for example, 12. Then ask your student to verify that 12 is correct by grouping ten pennies together to see if there are 2 extra pennies, making 12
• Take turns. One player shows ten fingers and the other person shows up to nine fingers. The player holding up ten fingers names the total number of fingers showing.
• Make a number book using a notebook or by attaching ten sheets of paper with staples or a paper clip. Help your student number the pages 11 through 19. On each page, have your student draw as many objects (or dots) as that page's number. 
• If you have access to magazines, invite your student to find pictures of objects that illustrate one or more of the numbers to 19. Use these activities as often as you would like. You might start by focusing on the numbers 11 and 12 and gradually work your way up to 19.

This week we will review Chapter 7, which is all about subtraction. We will be writing subtraction sentences, using the vocabulary terms: subtract, take from, and minus. We will also use a ten frame to model subtraction and show our work. The activities below are suggestions to try at home with your student. 

• Look for opportunities to talk about subtraction with your student. For example, perhaps you bought six bananas and now there are two. How many bananas did your family eat? There were ten people in line in front of you. Now there are four people in front of you. How many people left? 
• Take turns subtracting 1. One person names a number up to ten, the other person says the number that is one less. 
• Help your student practice writing subtraction sentences. Toss five coins on a table. Ask your student to write a sentence that uses the whole (all pennies) minus one part (heads) to find the other part (tails). 
• Scatter up to ten pennies on a table. Have your student count the pennies and write the number.Ask your student to look away while you cover some of the pennies with your hand or a sheet of paper. Challenge your student to name the number of hidden pennies using the number for the whole and the number of pennies that are showing. 

We will begin this week with our chapter 7 post test. In chapter 7, we have been working on subtraction. From there, we will be exploring geometry by creating our very own snowflakes after learning about Wilson Bentley, the man who photographed thousands of snowflakes! We will continue the fun with some more math activities that involve winter, addition, number fluency, and more!

This week we will be continuing our work in Chapter 7, which is subtraction within ten. In chapter 5, your student began to learn about subtraction concepts by taking apart a number. For example, your student might take apart 6 into 4 and 2. In this chapter, your student will use a subtraction sentence, which includes a minus sign, to show this relationship. Your student will subtract numbers within 10 to take away from a group of objects or animals and find how many are left. Your student will also subtract to take apart a whole and find the part that remains. Your student will discover subtraction patterns: When subtracting 0 from a number, the answer is the number. When subtracting 1 from a number, the answer is the counting number before the number. Finally, when subtracting a number from itself, the answer is 0. Your student will learn about the relationship between addition and subtraction by studying related facts, such as 2 + 3 = 5 and 5 − 3 = 2. This will help your student determine whether addition or subtraction best represents a situation. The vocabulary words for the chapter are left, minus sign, separate, subtract, subtraction sentence, and take away. Use the activities below to practice and apply subtraction with your student. 

• Look for opportunities to talk about subtraction with your student. For example, perhaps you bought six bananas and now there are two. How many bananas did your family eat? There were ten people in line in front of you. Now there are four people in front of you. How many people left?
• Take turns subtracting 1. One person names a number up to ten, the other person says the number that is one less.
• Help your student practice writing subtraction sentences. Toss five coins on a table. Ask your student to write a sentence that uses the whole (all pennies) minus one part (heads) to find the other part (tails). 
• Scatter up to ten pennies on a table. Have your student count the pennies and write the number. Ask your student to look away while you cover some of the pennies with your hand or a sheet of paper. Challenge your student to name the number of hidden pennies using the number for the whole and the number of pennies that are showing.