The DreamBox educator newsletter: supporting elementary math education
DreamBox Learning partners with educators to support math education. Our
newsletters include a broad range of topics: how students learn, the role of technology,
classroom tips, and much more
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Give parents fun ways to avoid the “summer slide”!
As the school year winds down, teachers and students alike are focused
on the coming summer vacation. But you may also be looking for ways to
remind parents of the importance of keeping the focus on math during the
summer to help your students maintain their academic skills. DreamBox
can help you fill the gap!
Download this parent handout
to suggest many fun ways to reinforce what you’ve taught them, and
help your students avoid the “summer slide.”
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Many students return to school in the fall having
lost some academic skills. According to the National Summer Learning
Association, students can lose up to three months of growth if they are
not engaged in learning during summer vacation.
You have introduced your students to many new math
concepts during the school year. Summer vacation provides an excellent
opportunity to practice these skills and gain proficiency in a relaxed
and non-academic setting. It’s also a great opportunity to show how
math is used in real life, outside the classroom.
This is where DreamBox can help! Any teacher can
download the “Avoid the Summer Slide” handout
and send it home to parents — either by printing it out or emailing
it to parents directly with your note.
The handout describes a range of fun activities
families can enjoy together. They are based on the ten different standards
of math learning for every grade level, suggested by the National Council
of Teachers of Mathematics—five Content Standards and five Process Standards.
The parent handout includes suggestions like:
- Variations on a card game that reinforce number
sense, including addition, subtraction, and number relationships such
as “greater than” and “less than”
- Games that develop pattern recognition
- Fun ways to play with 2-dimensional and 3-dimensional forms
- Activities that develop critical thinking and problem-solving ability
through everyday family life
You’ll support the home-school connection when
you help parents understand how these activities relate to math concepts.
And most importantly, these fun activities will help reinforce the math your
students have learned through the school year.
Share the
“Avoid the Summer Slide” handout
and you’ll help your students return in the fall ready to keep learning!
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New DreamBox report: see at a glance what your students are learning
DreamBox Learning has a new report that makes it
easy to see — and share — what math concepts your students
are learning playing DreamBox.
Click here to view a sample of the new DreamBox Academic Progress Report
.
You’ll see:
- Which math concept units your students have passed in placement lessons
- Which ones they have mastered by completing DreamBox lessons
- The percentage of progress they’ve made in the math concepts they are currently learning
- Student time in DreamBox lessons and the number of lessons completed
To view the full report for your class, click here.
We know teachers want easy access to details on the math their students
are learning. Now you can see a list of the math concepts in DreamBox,
which are based on the critical NCTM Focal Points for Number Sense and
Operations, and Algebra. And you’ll see the status of each
student’s progress for each of those lesson groups.
You can access this report any time on your
Teacher Dashboard.
(On the Student Progress tab, just click on the link that reads
“Preview the new Academic Progress Report”). And it’s
easy to share with principals or with the teachers who will be working
with your students next year (based on your privacy policy). From the
report, just click on the “Send report by e-mail” button
at the top of the page.
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Will you be at ISTE 2010 in Denver, June 28-30?
Stop by and visit DreamBox in
booth 2156. We’d love to meet you, and you could win cool stuff!
- Join us for hourly demos — and you could win a 60-minute Apple Timer!
- Get FREE Teacher Tools
- And ideas for using them in your classroom
- Get a FREE classroom trial and learn:
- Why you should use DreamBox in the classroom;
- What students will learn in our NCTM-based curriculum;
- And how DreamBox helps you track student progress.
- And enter to win the DreamBox Math Classroom!
We have 20 free admission tickets to the ISTE Exhibit Hall.
Email schools@dreambox.com
if you’d like some let us know and we’ll send them out to you (first come-first served)!
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Did you know?
If you buy DreamBox now for the next school year, students can play today for free!
Pricing is now available for the 2010-2011 school
year, with discounts for school-wide and district-wide implementations
AND with a very special offer: if you purchase the DreamBox Math Classroom
now for next year you can start using the subscription now, so students
new to DreamBox get a free head start!
Now you can
request a quote for your classroom, school or district
(for school use only, or for School Plus Home access).
Yet another prestigious award for DreamBox Learning
DreamBox has been awarded the
2010 BESSIE Award for Best Math Website.
ComputEd’s Best Educational Software Awards honor the innovative
and content-rich programs and websites that provide the technology to
foster educational excellence.
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