Mrs. Thorp’s Third Grade Blog

Many parents want to know what their child should know before he/she gets to third grade. Well, first of all, at the beginning of the year third grade teachers do a lot of reviewing because many children forget what they have learned over the summer. Plus third graders all come into third grade at various stages in their learning. But what is helpful is if your incoming third grader can:

• add and subtract math facts quickly (without using their fingers or touchmath).
• can tell time to the nearest quarter hour and even possibly to the nearest five minutes.
• can count money up to a dollar.
• can read numbers up to 999.
• can count to 1000.
• can skip count by two’s, five’s and ten’s.

What can you do as a parent to help your child?

• buy or make some flash cards to practice math facts.
• practice skip counting while you drive in the car. Get the whole family involved, each taking a turn with the next number.
• let your child count the change in your purse or pocket.
• ask your child to tell you what time it is at various times during the day.
• find some math games online. One place is A+math. I found the nonjava worked the best on my computer.
• play games like Yahtzee where your child has to keep score by adding numbers.

Let me know how this works for you. I would be interested if anyone has anymore ideas.