Keeping Up With Second Grade

You may remember that Ehren's been working on improving his spelling test scores. Last Friday as he was going into school, I heard him say,"I can't wait for my spelling test!"  This Friday, he got back the results from that test.  He spelled all 15 words and the two challenge words correctly.  Pretty exciting stuff.

At parent-teacher conferences last week, we found out that we have new academic challenge to tackle.  In a few weeks, the second-graders will be taking a timed math test.  They have to complete 100 adding facts in five minutes.  Ehren and Christian's accuracy is there, but not the speed.  I found these five-minute adding frenzy grids for practicing at home.  I did a baseline assessment and found out Christian is at 8 minutes and Ehren is at 11 minutes.  I'm going to have them race each other for practice, but I can't have the winner get a piece of Halloween candy {yes, we still have a lot} because right now, Christian will win every time.  Instead, they are racing to beat their own best time.

As the baseline times show, Ehren is struggling more than Christian.  I overheard the two of them talking after they raced through the first two grids.  Ehren asked Christian, "How do you write those answers so fast?"  So, as extra motivation for Ehren, I dreamed up the 5-5-5 challenge.  Ehren is saving up for a deluxe pack of Pokemon cards that costs $15.  He has $5 so far, and I told him if he can get down to five minutes on these grids five times, I will give him another $5 towards his Pokemon cards.  I'll keep you posted.