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Each day we start the lesson off with a 10 minutes math session where we take out our
’10 Minutes a Day’ books and we open up to the relevant page and we talk about the
strategy that we’re using for the week. I know that I am teaching number facts. It
gives me the confidence that I’m actually teaching them their number facts. The students
just get all excited. So, we do this every morning at nine o’clock, for 10 minutes,
and then we carry on with our other work, and then after morning tea we mark it, so
everyone’s into a routine as well. I guess probably what I like the most about this program
as a teacher, is that it allows my kids to see their progress improve. Then the kids
get really excited, and we start timing them on how long it takes for them to do the addition
sums. What I like to do is to start them off and they will begin writing the answers. When
they get to the end of their sums, which is about 80 sums a day that we do to begin with,
they put their hand up and I give them the time that it took for them to complete the
sums. ...and they are very excited about beating their personal times. Lots of the children
tell me when they’ve beaten their personal times, and they love calling out ‘Done!’.
It’s really exciting, it’s just a positive way of teaching maths, and they don’t realise
that they are actually having fun when they’re doing their number facts. The kids love it,
because they all try and beat their time, that’s the whole aim. ...and now it’s
all about improving their speed, and improving their accuracy. And I’ve noticed as the
days have gone past and the weeks have gone past, that their scores are actually improving,
in terms of they’re able to do the mathematic work faster and with fewer mistakes. Across
the week I have somebody record how many sums the child was able to do, and how long it
took for them to do it, and the children are really excited to see that their accuracy
is becoming much better, and that their time is also dropping. I’m finding that I can
apply this to other maths activities that we’re doing in the classroom. The homework
sheets was good for the parents to see that we are teaching number facts, and also for
them to understand the importance of teaching number facts. The parents think they’re
fantastic too. Like we get good feedback. So most of the students get everything right,
and it’s great because it reinforces what we’ve been doing every day. Previously we’ve
used a strategy called ‘Two Minute Maths’, which is similar, where you give them two
minutes to complete as many number facts as you can. The problem with that strategy was
that we weren’t teaching them a strategy to add up, we were just telling them ‘you
need to add up’, and timing them how to do it. So having a strategy for them to use
is really helpful. The Extension was good because you got to see whether some children
had fully grasped the concept of number facts and were able to transfer their knowledge
to bigger numbers, and see the connections with bigger numbers. Having the low maths
group is actually quite a challenge at times, but it’s great for them to be able to see
that we can really improve their basic number facts. And as we go through the booklet the
number facts increase in difficulty, but they’re not scared to try it, because we’re doing
it little bit by little bit. When I was studying I did some pracs at different schools, and
I didn’t see a number fact program being used when I was at those schools. And while
I was studying and looking through resources I haven’t seen any worksheets that resemble
anything that these worksheets do. So they’re great. So for me personally, this would be
something that I would ask for every year. I don’t know how it could be better when
they’re learning their number facts - 10! All in all, I think the program is very useful,
and it doesn’t take too long to accomplish in a classroom. So I could highly recommend
the program for yourself, in case you were thinking of utilizing it in your school or
in your classroom.