by: Tanya Black and Lisa Schroeder

My name is Tanya Black and I am one of the math lead teachers at Fairfax Villa. What does that mean? In addition to my teaching credentials I have taken 2 semester classes required by Fairfax County Public Schools that encompass all aspects of math skills required for kindergarten to 8th grade students. Methodology, strategies, resources and core knowledge are all covered in depth. I have given workshops on various topics to teachers across the county. I have a love of math and a genuine desire for every child to understand and enjoy math. I have experience in teaching math in grades kindergarten through 6th grade.

I'm Lisa Schroeder and, along with being the math specialist at Fairfax Villa Elementary, I am the other math lead teacher. My role at this school is to support teachers and students with math needs, develop and plan curriculum, teach the Compacted Math classes, and help teachers prepare for the math SOL tests in May. As with Mrs. Black, I, too, have a love of math which I hope to share with the students at Fairfax Villa.

Challenge 24 Club

The Challenge 24 math club will begin meeting on Mondays during lunch time for any fifth and sixth grade students interested in participating. Students eat lunch while playing the game in the art room. Attendance is open to all that are interested and is on a "drop in" basis from week to week. Mrs. Black and Ms. Schroeder are there to teach, supervise, and enjoy the game with the students. Challenge 24 is a math card game with 4 numbers on the face of each card. Students compete with each other to come up with computations that include all 4 numbers that end up with a final answer of 24. It is a game of speed and mental math skills. It also creates a collaborative and supportive atmosphere among the players, who cheer and encourage each other, and often work cooperatively to solve difficult cards.

Math Websites

The following is a list of great math websites that you can use at home to help with math. Some of them offer tips and advise for solving problems, while others have cool math games and puzzles to play. We hope you enjoy them!

Algebra Solutions: http://www.gomath.com/algebra.html
Get solutions to problems, practice skills, and find information about decimals, fractions, prime factorization, ratio and proportion.

Brain Quest: http://www.brainquest.com/kids.php
This site allows you to play games based on the Brain Quest trivia questions.

Erich's Puzzle Palace: http://www.stetson.edu/~efriedma/puzzle.html
This site includes several math-related games, and puzzles, logic problems.

Math Activities: http://illuminations.nctm.org/Activities.aspx?grade=all&standard=all
This site includes several interactive math games, including the Factor Game.

Math League: http://www.mathleague.com/help/help.htm
This is a resource tool for 4th through 8th graders that includes information on whole numbers, decimals, integers, probability and an introduction to algebra.

Metric Conversion Tool: http://www.allmath.com/metric.php
This site allows you to make conversions to and from metric and U.S. measurement of volume, length, area and mass.

School Discovery-Brain Boosters: http://school.discovery.com/brainboosters/
Brain Boosters offers online activities for kids including educational games and brain teasers

Sudoku Puzzles: http://www.sudoku-puzzles.net/
Choose an easy, medium, or hard Sudoku puzzle. Then solve it online or print it out to play when you are away from your computer.

Sudoku Puzzles: How to Solve Them! http://www.sudoku.com/howtosolve.htm
Get some helpful hints on how to solve this Japanese puzzle.