Going back to school means building on the concepts learned last year. But what if your child was a little shaky on some of those math concepts? Avoid 3rd grade math anxiety in the fall by knowing which concepts your child should master by the end of the summer.

There are several areas which can be extra-tricky for 3rd grade math students, and they are often the areas that are frequently tested. Mastering these skills will provide your child with the strong fundamentals that they will need not only in 3rd grade, but for the rest of their elementary math studies.

3rd Grade Math Readiness Activity Ideas 

Before September rolls around, assure that your child has mastered 2nd grade math concepts like base-ten, addition, subtraction, measurement, and shapes. You can gauge your child’s understanding of these math concepts with the activity ideas provided below.

Fluency of Addition & Subtraction Facts 

• The number one activity this summer should be memorizing all add/subtract facts from 0-18
• Make it fun! Memorize using rhymes, pictures and fun clapping games. Check it out here.
• Visual learners need to draw word problems to understand. Encourage this approach.
• Audio learners remember by talking about the concepts and teaching someone else.
• Tactile learners remember by touching, clapping, manipulating objects.
• Discover your child’s learning style here.
• Get a head start on Multiplication/Division memorization.

Understanding Base-ten Notation

• Practice counting in fives, tens, and multiples of hundreds. Good activity on trips!
• Understanding numbers. For example, the number 369 is 3 hundreds + 6 tens + 9 ones.
• Play games like Base 10 Bingo

Using Standard Units of Measure

• Measurement: Get out rulers, tape measures, yard sticks and measure everything in sight. Metric and standard. Make your own table runner per picture and find measurements at meal time!
• Money:  Provide real life situations where your child has to count out money, figure change, count etc.
• Liquid & Dry Measurement: Cook with your child, follow recipes. Check out downloadable Kingdom of Gallon ebook.
• Time: Know how to tell time, know the months in order, days of the week, days in each month. See Memory Tips for Math for rhymes to remember.

 Describing and Analyzing Shapes

• Name Shapes Game: See who can find 5 square shapes, 5 rectangles, 5 circle shapes, 5 triangle shapes, etc.
• Even very young children can learn geometry! Check out this book for Kindergarten Geometry
• Build, draw, and talk about two and three-dimensional shapes like model airplanes, doll houses, boxes
• Check out IXL interactive website. Very thorough and covers all math material per grade.