Babies, operations and the confession to myself that I missed teaching were the reasons I ended up in the classroom 3 times during the 2017-2018 school year. Don’t get me wrong, I love retirement! Having the flexiblility to travel whenever I want to can’t be beat but I found myself missing being around the elementary students. So I accepted not one, not two but 3 long term substituting jobs.

The third and longest of the three was 10 weeks to finish out the school year. With the help of the other two teachers everything went smoothly until I realized there was higher math involved. There was a little bit of panic and a little bit of convincing myself that I could step out of my comfort zone of teaching children to add and subtract numbers 1 through 10.

With Smartboard pen in hand, I blindly led twenty 3rd graders towards learning two quotient division. Along the way there was a lot of different approaches to see which one would click. After many trials and errors and turning the lined paper horizontally, finally, we were on our way to success.

I am proud to say every child in the class ended up knowing the necessary steps and understanding the concept. However not every child got an “A” on the test. The reason was simple. They didn’t know their multiplication and division facts.

Children can not be successful in math if they do not know their basic math facts! Children can not be successful in math if they do not know their basic math facts! Children can not be successful in math if they do not know their basic math facts! Children can not be successful in math if they do not know their basic math facts! ……………..I can’t stress this enough.

They need home practice. They need home practice often. Children practice music at home before their recital, they shoot baskets at home before the big game so it makes since that they need to practice math facts at home before they advance to the more difficult math concepts.

Help your child be successful in math. Please.