Over the next few weeks, your child will be learning about number relationships such as multiples, factors, divisibility, powers of numbers, and square roots. Your child will be reviewing their previous knowledge of the order of operations and extending this knowledge to include brackets and powers of whole numbers.
To reinforce the concepts your child is learning at school, you and your child can work on some at-home activities such as these:
1. Look for the use of large numbers in the media, expecially when they are written using powers such as 3 x 10^8. Discuss what this number means.
2. Find different calculators you may have around the house and discuss with your child how the calculator evaluates powers and square roots. Have your child find out if the calculator uses the order of operations when it calculates.
3. After your child has learned about the Divisibility Rules, give him or her several large numbers and ask them to decide whether each is divisible by 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, or 9. Ask them to explain how they know.
You can also visit the Nelson Mathematics website at
www.mathK8.nelson.com for more suggestions.
