School District No. 83 (North Okanagan-Shuswap)

Home Activities for Intermediate students

Here are some literacy and numeracy home activity suggestions for your children!

Literacy

  • Consider a daily routine of reading a book of their choice for 20 minutes. Choose: Read-to-Self, Read-to-Someone, Listen-to-Reading
  • Select a book to read for at least 20minutes. While reading, imagine what the setting (WHERE the story is taking place) looks like. Draw a picture of the setting as you imagine.
  • Create a Journal and write in it each day. Create illustrations for your journal, take photographs, or even glue artifacts into it. 
  • Create and write down 5 questions to use in an interview with a family member or friend. Talk to, call, Facetime, or video chat with that family member or friend to conduct the interview. 
  • Ask questions! The more you ask, the more your child will wonder along with you!
  • Play word games like Banana Grams, Scrabble…
  • Sign-up for a library card through the Okanagan Regional Library
  • Explore some online resources to access a variety of family literacy activities:

Numeracy Activities for Grades 4-5

Grade 4

Big Ideas for grade 4: Students learned to multiply single digits (e.g. multiplication ‘facts’) as well as multiply 2 and 3 digit numbers x 1 digit. Examples: 6×3; 5×9; 34 x 3; 214 x 4. 

Students also learned the meaning of decimals to the hundredths. It is helpful to practice adding and subtracting with whole numbers and decimals such as 34.51-22.54.  This is a great chance to use money calculations!

Games: https://gregtangmath.com/numtanga This game builds understanding of fractions.

https://www.prodigygame.com/ for practicing many math concepts. You will need to create a free account.

Play games such as Crib (link to rules), Monopoly, Game of Life (the old-style version where you use play money and have the kids be the banker). Check out other games on our website: https://sd83.bc.ca/family-math-games/

Estimation Jar of the week activity
Fill a jar or container with a certain number of similar objects. At grade 4 it is suggested to keep it to 100 objects or less. (However, it is also helpful to go to a much larger number if you aren’t expecting them to estimate within 10 or even 100. For example, it is helpful to recognize that there might be 1000 rice grains in a container, rather than 100.) Examples of items you might place in a container: put 20 marbles in a cup, or 150 Q-tips, 25 tea bags etc. Have your child guess how many objects are in the container. Write their estimate on paper and leave it beside the jar. Each day post a clue such as “The answer does not have a “7” digit”, “The answer is a multiple of 4” or “The answer is an even number”. Your child can change their answer, narrowing it down each day until Friday when you reveal the final answer!

Kitchen math
Invite your child to help with baking. Have them practice doubling or halving a recipe. To help with understanding fractions, have them draw pictures. For example, use a picture to show 2 groups of 2/3 cup.

If I had a thousand dollars…
Pretend that you have $1,000 to spend. Research what you would buy (you can disregard tax). Make a list of what you would buy, and total it. How close can you get to spending the entire $1,000 without going over?

Daily problem solving
It is so important to use math in context, rather than always a page of questions. Help your child see how math is used by giving them a question each day such as “I mowed 2/5th of the lawn and your uncle mowed 2/7th of the lawn. Who mowed more the lawn? Show how you know.” OR “Our chickens lay about 24 eggs a day. How many eggs do you think we will have in a week?”  Students should be encouraged to solve the problems using pictures just as much (or more) than equations. Great mathematicians use diagrams frequently to help sort out what a question is asking them to do.

Knock ‘em Down Multiplication: (Use nerf/squirt guns, or use a tennis ball/water balloons/bean bags/water hose/rolled up socks etc.)
Write the numbers 1-10 (or whatever numbers are appropriate for your child’s math level) on plastic cups. Line them up on a ledge outside. When you say “Go” the child gets 3 tries to knock down the cups. They then multiply the numbers together and tally their points. The first one to 1 000 (or 10 000 depending on how long you want to play) wins. Example: If they hit “4” “6” and “3” they do 4×6=24 then 24×3=72, and they would earn 72 points. If this is too difficult, have the child choose a maximum of 2 of the cups they knocked down and multiply those two digits together.

A harder challenge: If they hit 2 numbers, they multiply those two together and earn that many points. However, if they hit 3 numbers, they must choose how to organize their equation. They then combine any 2 digits to make a 2 digit number and multiply it by the third digit. Example: If they hit “4” “7” and “8” they could choose to do 47×8=376 OR 87×4=348 OR 74×8=592, which would give them the most points.

Grade 5

Big Ideas for grade 5: Students learned to multiply 2 digit numbers x 2 digit numbers (example 43×56).  Students also learned to recognize and create equivalent fractions (example 2/3 = 4/6)

Students also learned to divide whole numbers (example 246 divided by 3)

Strategies: students should have a solid grasp of strategies for multiplication facts (example, 4×7 think of 2×7 plus another 2×7).  Have your child show you the area model of multiplication. (example have them show you how to do 34 x 7.  They will decompose 34 into 30 and 4 and then multiply 30 x 7 and add it to 4×7). 

Games: https://www.prodigygame.com/ This is a game for practicing math concepts.  You will need to create a free account.

https://gregtangmath.com/numtanga This game builds an understanding of fractions.

Card and dice games that we have been sending out during home learning are great ways to practice addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. Being able to add numbers to 20 quickly, and knowing times tables will be very helpful! Examples of games: Yahtzee, 10 000, $9.99, Crib (link to rules). Check out the games on our website: https://sd83.bc.ca/family-math-games/

Daily problem solving
It is so important to use math in context, rather than always a page of questions. Help your child see how math is used by giving them a question each day such as “I mowed 2/5th of the lawn and your uncle mowed 2/7th of the lawn. Who mowed more the lawn? Show how you know.”
OR “Callie bought a hamburger for $6.50 and pop for $2.25. She paid with a $20 bill. How much change should Callie get?”  Students should be encouraged to solve the problems using pictures just as much (or more) than equations. Great mathematicians use diagrams frequently to help sort out what a question is asking them to do.

Knock ‘em down Multiplication: (Use nerf/squirt guns, or use a tennis ball/water balloons/bean bags/water hose/rolled up socks etc.)
Write the numbers 1-10 (or whatever numbers are appropriate for your child’s math level) on plastic cups. Line them up on a ledge outside. When you say “Go” the child gets 3 tries to knock down the cups. They then multiply the numbers together and tally their points. The first one to 1,000 (or 10,000 depending on how long you want to play) wins. For example, if they hit “4” “6” and “3” they do 4×6=24 then 24×3=72, and they would earn 72 points.

A harder challenge: if they hit 2 numbers, they multiply them together and earn that many points. However, if they hit 3 numbers, they must choose how to organize their equation. They then combine any 2 digits to make a 2 digit number and multiply it by the third digit. Example: If they hit “4” “7” and “8” they could choose to do 47×8=376 OR 87×4=348 OR 74×8=592, which would give them the most points.

Kitchen math
Invite your child to help with baking. Have them practice doubling or halving a recipe. To help with understanding fractions have them draw pictures. For example, draw a picture to show 2 groups of 2/3 of a cup.

If I had a thousand dollars…

Pretend that you have $1,000 to spend. Research what you would buy (you can disregard tax). Make a list of what you would buy, and total it. How close can you get to spending the entire $1,000 without going over?