O.k., as far as I know, I will be at school all week. I still have a medical appointment coming up on the 23rd in the morning but nothing until then...at least as of now.
The news this week is that we won't have a spelling test because of the Valentine card exchange on Friday. Fridays are so short, and we weren't able to get last week's test done on Friday so we will do it on Monday.
Friday we will be exchanging Valentine cards. No one HAS to bring cards but if your child does he/she needs to bring equal-value things for all the students. Also, as the note that was sent home on Friday said, please just have him/her write his/her own name on the card. It makes it a lot easier to pass out if the children haven't written the other students' names on the cards. (Because of the Valentine exchange, we won't have math rotations on Friday.) Also, we will be making large envelopes in class for the students to put their Valentines in.
The Math news is that our district math committee has us scheduled to not actually do math lessons from the program this week but to work with composing numbers (addition) and number bonds to practice what we did last week. We will be working a lot in math journals so there may not be math pages coming home.
What, might you be asking, is a number bond? In order to understand numbers and how adding and subtracting relate we talk about 'number bonds' which are pairs that make up each number. As an example the number bonds for seven are 3+4, 2+5, 1+6 and 0+7 (you can also reverse these to 4+3, 5+2, 6+1, and 7+0). You can "compose" numbers by finding the number bonds that add up to a certain number and "decompose" numbers by breaking the number into its number bonds. (Didn't we use to just call this adding and subtracting numbers?) One thing about education....there is always new language to learn. (O.k., Mrs. Reynolds, if I didn't explain this very well or correctly, please leave a comment! Mrs. Reynolds is our math expert at our school.)
In phonics we are studying the letter "v." As you are out and about, or even at home, see if your child can either find the letter "v" on things, or items that start with the /v/ sound. Honestly, Mrs. Duque and I didn't arrange things to teach "v" on Valentine week....but hey, it sure worked out great!
Our vocabulary (another "v" word) this week is enormous, swaying, delighted, cooperating, and struggling. These are great words to use in everyday conversation!
Well, I guess that is enough news for one day! Please let me know if these posts are helpful!
Your explanation is perfect.
ReplyDeleteHere is the actual "definition" of a number bond:
A number bond is a mental picture of the relationship between a number and the parts that combine to make it. The concept of number bonds is very basic, an important foundation for understanding how numbers work. A whole thing is made up of parts. If you know the parts, you can put them together (add) to find the whole. If you know the whole and one of the parts, you take away the part you know (subtract) to find the other part.
The definition came from this link: http://letsplaymath.wordpress.com/2007/01/13/number-bonds-better-understanding/
There are some great ideas on that site to help with number sense.
Based on this definition, you can see that number bonds are not just doubles or doubles plus 1. If your students are able to "see" number bonds, they are able to figure out the missing part of an addition or subtraction sentence. Clearly this takes a lot of practice and there is no one perfect way to teach so that all children will understand the concept. Children will develop number bond sense as they become more proficient at math facts. There are several ways to present a visual picture of a number bond.