Math Class Changes

One of the main goals in the 3/4 level is to foster a child's ability to work independently. With that in mind, we are moving to have the textbook be the main focus for our work.  During independent work time, the students will be mostly focused on working in their textbook.  If they are struggling with a particular topic, I will assign related workbook exercises to complete.  The textbook doesn't leave much space to work on their problems, so I have given them each an orange folder with paper to work on. 

I will be evaluating them based on their textbook work.  While the textbooks stay at school, the workbooks may go home for extra practice.  This goes for all students unless we have already specified a unique need for a particular student.

The textbook explains how to do the math in each of the sections. The goal is for the student to be able to read the text and figure out how to do the math themselves, leaving the teacher to fill in the gaps and make meaningful connections between the abstract problems and the real world.  It also allows the student to move ahead at their own pace and not have to wait for the teacher to explain everything.  This is also the strategy used by the math teachers at the next levels of math at this school.  I would like to prepare them to be able to succeed in those classes as well.

I hope these new changes will help the students become more independent in their mathematical adventures.

Let me know what questions you have.