• Category: Uncategorized
• Published Dated: April 29, 2010
• Written by: Susan

For the last two weeks, I have been on track working hours and hours on the practice pages for the new addition and subtraction workbook. I don’t have a name for it yet, but the catalog number will be LP 250.

This new workbook will provide practice pages for children who are learning to add and subtract two and three columns of math. Regrouping, or exchanging, 10 ones to a 10, or 10 tens to a 100, a 10 to 10 ones, and a 100 to 10 tens will be introduced and reviewed at various points in the book.

This new book does not have to be used with Two Plus Two Is Not Five, but if you are using Two Plus Two, you will appreciate that LP 250 will have six coordinated sections of practice. The first section will provide practice using only facts that are taught by the end of Tier 1. The second section does the same for facts that are taught by the end of Tier 2, and so on. A few word math problem pages will be included in the book, and will also be based on the fact knowledge at that point in the book.

If you are using Two Plus Two, and would like to try out some pages from the new workbook, please email me from the website: www.TwoPlusTwoIsNotFive.com with which page your student or class is currently working on, and I will send you some pages to sample.

Today, I was designing two-column math pages that used all the facts through Tier 5. I spend a lot of time noting how many of each fact is used, so that there aren’t a lot of, for example, 5+5, but only a few of 6+8. However, when a new set of facts are being introduced, there will be more of them at that point.

This afternoon, I asked a 2nd grader I tutor to try out one of the pages. (I always tell the children, if there is a fact they don’t know, they do not have to solve it. This is because I know that the page WILL have only facts they know. But, once in awhile, in error, I type a fact that has not been taught yet. The students love to be able to point it out to me, and of course, that is beneficial to me as well.)

Since this student has recently learned all the math facts through Tier 5 in Two Plus Two Is Not Five, he was ready and very able to do the mixed addition and subtraction with and without regrouping on this page. I watched him as he worked, and every so often, when he paused, I asked him if he knew a strategy, and he’d say, “Oh,” and name how to get the answer. (Lots of 4s, Looks Like Middles.) This is a student who used to mix-up addition and subtraction within a problem. Today, 36 problems, and he had 35 correct! I asked him for feedback, what he thought about the page. He said,”It was easy.” That’s because he didn’t have to count to get answers, and he properly learned how to regroup.

Knowing math facts is precisely what gives children ability and confidence to complete higher level math. Not having to count out answers, struggle with number lines, charts, fingers, dots or lines makes a world of difference!