Lots Coming Up!!! Multiplication Gumball!

I was in Kansas City this weekend watching my daughter play basketball and it hit me....we only have about three weeks of school left!!!!!  Started to get into a panic mode thinking about everything we have to get done in the next few weeks!  Yikes!

COUNTDOWN WIDGET

First of, a note is coming home today asking for parent volunteers for our field trip coming up May 31st.  Each 3rd grade classroom will be taking 5 chaperones.  Each chaperone will be responsible for a small group of 4-5 third grade students the whole day.  Many of you have expressed interest already.  Please fill out the sheet, whether you are interested or not, and return it to school by Wednesday.  If I have more than five adults volunteer, I will draw names and let you know by Thursday or Friday of this week.  More information about the field trip itself will be sent home next week.  Thanks so much!

We have wrapped up our unit it math on geometry.  There are a few people who need to finish the assessment yet, but I plan to send them home by the end of the week.  Our next unit in math is on multiplication - a second unit to move onto the harder facts.  I spoke to the students about an activity all 3rd graders will be working on to build their recall of multiplication facts.  We are going to call it "Gum Ball Multiplication"

Let me explain...starting tomorrow, students will take a quick timed assessment over the facts x1.  (starting easy).  I will check them at night and anyone who gets them all correct in the time allowed will get a gumball the following day.  Those students will then move onto the x2 facts. Those students who do not get them correct in the amount of time will try the ones again.  Basically students will be tested on their 1s, 2s, 5s, and 10s before moving onto the harder ones.  Each time they get it right in the amount of time allowed, they get a gumball to chew the following day.  If they do not get them right, they continue working and testing on that family until they do get them all right in the time allowed.    The goal is to work through all the facts and get them memorized quickly.  The person who gets ALL their facts memorized and correct the fastest in the least amount of days, will get a gumball machine full of gumballs to take home.

The students are very excited!  So let's see how well we can do!  Get practicing your facts 3B!!!!