Teacher:  Kody Amour

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In this fun games, projects and mastery activities series of classes, we will follow along with what you’re doing at home to enhance your child’s understanding and enjoyment of math!  Math Games & Mastery has 6 levels, so find the level that matches what your child needs to practice, and join us in class for a hands-on experience that helps all kids see themselves as mathematicians!  Some students will be learning these concepts for the first time, and some students will be in the class because they need some reinforcement of these ideas.  Both types of students will have a great time in class, and walk away with a stronger understanding of math principles.  

 

Type of Class:  Math Games & Mastery classes are standards based math classes designed to enhance your HomeSchooling.  Students should still be following a curriculum at home to thoroughly learn Math.  These classes meet once a week, and students should be practicing math concepts daily to achieve mastery!
 

 

Math Games & Mastery I:  

Prerequisites:   Be able to count to 20.  Be able to hold a pencil and do minor writing.  It’s OK if your child is still writing numbers backwards!  That will shift in time.

 

Ages:  6-8

Homework:  Provided but optional

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In this year-long class we will be working on addition and subtraction strategies through the number 20, and quite possibly more.  This is the perfect class for new graduates from our Young Learners program!  We’ll be using cubes and other objects to help us understand the underlying principles of addition and subtraction while we first model putting together and then taking apart, and then move into number identification and using worksheets that allow us to switch from concrete understandings to the abstractions we’re all so used to. It’s so important for early mathematicians to see what they are doing with counting, adding and subtracting before we move to the abstraction of a worksheet, but we’ll get there!   We’ll use chips and other objects to practice counting, counting by twos, making 10s, decomposing 10s and so much more!  Our games will help kids master number bonds that will help them move easily from addition to subtraction.  (3+4=7, 7-3=4, 7-4=3) We’ll be grouping numbers in tens and ones and learning about place value up to a hundred.   We’ll be getting good at using our rulers and other measuring devices, and also becoming masters of shapes!  We’ll put shapes together, take them apart, identify them all around us as we work with shapes using different tactile experiences.  With math, one of the most important aspects is the kids have FUN with the concepts and see themselves as mathematicians!

 

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Math Games & Mastery II:  

Prerequisites:   Be able to count to 20.  Be able to hold a pencil and do minor writing.  It’s OK if your child is still writing numbers backwards!  That will shift in time.

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Ages:  7-9

 

In this year-long class we will be extending our understanding and fluency / speed of addition and subtraction through the number 20, and quite possibly more.  No more using our fingers, we’ll start memorizing our math facts!  We’ll be using cubes and other objects to help us master skip counting  in 5s, 10s and 100s!  It’s so important for early mathematicians to see what they are doing with their math, so each new concept will be introduced with concrete games and activities where the kids will be touching and moving around objects to understand and gain a strong number sense.  We’ll extend our number bonds and place value up to 1000!  We’ll be breaking apart numbers and building numbers through our games and projects, helping math seem easy and fun.  We’ll continue to use measuring devices and compose and decompose successively more challenging shapes!  This year we’ll not just touch our shapes and make them out of clay and paper, but we’ll also start drawing  shapes and ideas around shapes; congruency, symmetry, asymmetry, area, volume and more!  This year we also introduce angles and additional aspects of simple shapes.  Our measurement of time will be extended to the quarter hour, and we’ll also be learning all about money!  Kids love money games and we’ll definitely be shopping with our newly minted money store!  With math, one of the most important aspects is the kids have FUN with the concepts and see themselves as mathematicians!

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Math Games & Mastery III:  

Prerequisites:   Be able to count to 100, add and subtract easily, count by 2s.  Must be able to hold a pencil and write.

 

Homework:  YES

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Ages:  8-10

 

In this year-long class we will be starting to multiply and divide! All that skip counting will really come in handy as we use manipulatives to understand the concept of “fast adding” - multiplication!  If your kids haven’t started skip counting yet, they will in this class!  We’ll learn all kinds of strategies for memorizing those multiplication facts, and then decomposing multiplication with division.  Be prepared to do some practicing at home to get those multiplication tables memorized!  We’ll keep using our multiplication tables until they are, but everything is easier when kids can memorize those math facts!  It’s so important for early mathematicians to see what they are doing with their math, so each new concept will be introduced with concrete games and activities where the kids will be touching and moving around objects to understand and gain a stronger number sense.  Once we’ve mastered basic multiplication and division, we’ll continue on to a different type of division: fractions!  While we’ll focus on the unit fraction - fractions with a numerator of 1 - we’ll quickly be able to do simple addition and subtraction of fractions, ordering fractions from smallest to largest, and using fraction bars to understand the idea of fraction equivalency.  Once we’ve achieved these milestones, we start to do more challenging fraction work by creating new equivalent fractions, using the multiplication skills we’ve just mastered!  Once we move into our geometry unit, we’ll start to investigate the idea of “area” by decomposing rectangles and squares into equal units. The idea of area being related to multiplication becomes clear once we work with these shapes and decompose them!  Our geometry unit will also pull in our fraction work as we decompose rectangles into two squares, squares into two small rectangles, triangles into portions of squares, and so much more!  With math, one of the most important aspects is the kids have FUN with the concepts and see themselves as mathematicians!

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Math Games & Mastery IV:  

Prerequisites:   Be able to do one-digit multiplication and division, add, subtract and carry easily.  Must have basic understanding of fractions as a part of a whole.   Must be able to hold a pencil and write.

 

Homework:  YES

Ages:  8-10

 

In this year-long class we will be continuing place value understanding up to 1,000,000!  We’ll also be mastering multi-digit multiplication and division! If your students haven’t memorized those multiplication tables, now’s the time!  We’ll continue to allow multiplication charts, but everything will be faster, easier and with less errors if the multiplication facts are memorized!  Using these new understandings of place value and multiplication, we’ll work on our estimation skills in a variety of games and projects.  How many skittles in a jar is easy when it’s 10, but how about when the jar is full?  Once we’ve remembered and extended our multiplication and division skills, it’s back to fractions!  We’ll be continuing to find fraction equivalents by multiplying fractions by variations of the number 1.  ½ of the pizza can easily become 2/4 of the pizza when the pizza is cut into fourths!  We’ll also be working with all kinds of fractions this year; improper fractions, mixed fractions and of course, proper fractions.  We’ll need all of our previous skills to learn how to manipulate a fraction and find different equivalents, and we’ll spend a bit of time on this particular skill as it’s the number one skill students need to succeed in the algebras.  We’ll continue to practice with objects AND worksheets, and when we’ve mastered fraction equivalents, we’ll see it’s so easy to add fractions with different denominators and order them from smaller to larger!  Once we’ve achieved these milestones, we start to do more challenging fraction work by creating new equivalent fractions, using the multiplication skills we’ve just mastered.  We’ll also start to see fractions as decimals!  Easy concepts like 3/10 = 0.3 will be introduced, along with the place value work necessary to make this make sense!  Of course, money magic helps us make the transition from fraction to decimal and we’ll be working with a lot of coins to help us understand the basic concepts.  The dreaded word problem will also be a part of this class, but since we’re working in teams to solve our mysteries, it might be the most fun part of the class! It’s definitely where we show that we truly understand mathematical principles and when we use each one!  In our geometry unit, we’ll start to investigate different figures and learn to describe and categorize them by different attributes; number of sides, angle measurements, parallel sides and more!  With math, one of the most important aspects is the kids have FUN with the concepts and see themselves as mathematicians!

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Math Games & Mastery V:  

Prerequisites:   Be able to do multi-digit multiplication and division, add, subtract and carry easily.  Must be able to add fractions with like-denominators, multiply fractions by a whole number (5/5, 2/2) to create equivalent fractions. 

 

Homework:  YES

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Ages:  9-11

 

In this year-long games and projects mastery class we will start by ensuring that we’ve completely mastered multi-digit addition, subtraction, multiplication and division.  We’ll move on to continuing our place value understanding for fraction-to-decimal conversions.  This is the year where all of those fractions conversions take place!  Fractions to decimals to percents and back again! We’ll have to have a thorough understanding of place value to the hundredths to make those conversions.  We’ll be working with addition and subtraction with decimals, understanding how this works with money, and continuing with decimal to fraction conversions. We’ll also be extending our fraction learning about adding and subtracting fractions with different denominators, working with all kinds of fractions, and starting to multiply and divide fractions.  We’ll need to do lots of modeling and so in this class, we switch a bit from games to projects as we start to grasp more challenging concepts.  In our geometry unit, we explore the 3D space of volume and build a Volume Village!  All of our work so far will help us understand the concepts of volume measurement and how this is used in so many areas of math!  We’ll play BattleShip type games as we explore the coordinate plane and while we’ll mostly stay in the 1st quadrant, we’ll definitely start to dabble into the idea of negative numbers as we look at the broader idea of the coordinate plane!  With math, one of the most important aspects is the kids have FUN with the concepts and see themselves as mathematicians!

 

Math Games & Mastery VI:  

Prerequisites:   Be able to do multi-digit multiplication and division, add, subtract and carry easily.  Must be able to add /subtract fractions with different-denominators and convert fractions to decimals to percentages.

 

Homework:  YES

 

Ages:  10-12

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In this year-long games and projects mastery class we will be mastering the ideas of Ratios and Rates!  Yep, the math starts to get a bit tricky this year, but we’ll use all kinds of real life examples to help students master the concepts of rates of change and ratios! Ratio and rate word problems will be explored but we’ll keep it fun as we look at the ratio of flour to sugar in a chocolate chip cookie recipe!  We’ll look at how ratios are a part of our daily life as we look at how fast we would have to mow lawns in a new lawn mowing business to make a profit, and then plot this on a coordinate plane.  We will also hone in on the whole range of negative integer operations through the use of number lines, coordinate planes, looking at money and how a bank account can become overdrawn, and so many more real-life examples of how negative numbers work!  We’re not quite done with fractions as we’ll be modeling how to divide fractions by fractions this year!  This year we also introduce the concept of a variable and learn to write simple expressions and equations with one variable. We’ll practice using dependent and independent variables in this unit, preparing everyone for PreAlgebra next year.  In our Geometry unit we extend the idea of volume and area by adding in surface area.  We’ll model more complex relationships between our geometric shapes, using formulas and fractions to understand geometry more thoroughly.  This is the class you want to take BEFORE you do PreAlgebra!

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