Five thoughts on 3rd grade math.

An 8-year old works on 3rd grade multiplication: using a number line, and then I run the 4s and 6s tables. He likes Math too. May that feeling be preserved throughout the ages. He does, however, miss one. Technically, he didn’t get it wrong. He accidentally skipped it. 4 x 12. He would have gotten it correct, most likely. But he skipped it, and that means it’s wrong. So he got it wrong. That’s something important to learn as well:

Check your work again after finishing to make sure you got at least an answer for everything.

Don’t lose easy points.

It’s totally fine to not get a perfect score every time. Learn to be okay with that, and improve the next time.

If you get something wrong, don’t expect whoever is grading it to pretend you got it right.

This is a hopeful thought: whatever you answered might be the wrong answer for that question, but is probably the right answer for a different question. So keep on going. Because you’re going to have some right answers and some good things in life if you just keep going and trying hard. You might not get perfect scores or 100s. But you’re going to be right sometimes, if you just keep going. So keep going.

Don’t expect a perfect score for less than perfect work. Math is one of the few occasions where and when I use the word “perfect.” Because Math has actual concrete answers most of the time. You get it right. Or you get it wrong. I’m more of a Words person than Numbers person. Yet I respect Math. Sort of like I used to respect a fair number of Republican Party politicians, even though I didn’t agree with significant portions of their policies or views. Now, I can’t really respect them, as they have turned their backs on things such as Science, Facts, Compassion, Reality, and the mindful use of Language. But Math…Math I think I can plan on always respecting. We’ll see.

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Additional:

A Kindergartener works on Addition sentences.

Samples:
4 + ( ) = 6
3 + ( ) = 7

I score him a 100 at the end. It’s an accurate assessment, BTW, I wouldn’t just give it to him. His smile is slight, but present. At five, he likes Math, and I love that. We move on to adding two single-digit numbers, e.g. 2 + 4 = ?, 3 + 9 = ?, 7 + 6 = ?