Grade 3 – Math

Description

Objective

Grade 3 Math is designed to help your child gain proficiency and skill at working with higher numbers using the four basic operations of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division they have learned, as well as ways of writing out problems which involve these operations; also reading, writing and mentally solving problems involving simple fractions.

Mastery of these skills will be crucial to your child’s math success. It will help him to be better prepared to tackle higher mathematics later on. And it will ensure a solid math foundation he will appreciate and rely on for the rest of his life.

Textbook

The textbook we’ll be using is Ray’s New Intellectual Arithmetic, the second volume in the Ray’s Arithmetic series.

If you are unfamiliar with Ray’s Arithmetics, these were widely used as a companion series to the McGuffey Readers in mid-19th- to early 20th-century America. Generations of children — and adults — learned math from them. This means generations of scientists, engineers, businessmen, entrepreneurs, statesmen and homemakers learned from them. The books remained popular and in widespread use until the 1920s when “progressive” education theories began to replace them and the methods taught in Ray’s. They continue to be popular in the home-schooling community.

Ray’s Intellectual math is just that. It stresses mental (“intellectual”) math. Whereas the Primary Arithmetic — grades 1 and 2 — taught the basics of numbers and math using both visual and “concrete” means, Intellectual Arithmetic helps the student to advance to the next level of his understanding of math using drill and practice at solving problems mentally as well as on paper.

Through the use of drill and “story problems,” math concepts are learned gradually. Your child will find that the story problems seem more like riddles and mysteries to be solved rather than math problems. Repetition is used throughout.

“Over-learning” is the key to mastery.

SCOPE

Grade 3 Math covers the first 26 lessons of Ray’s Intellectual Arithmetic. The first five lessons of the course are available to you for free, click here.