Study Plan C

Sort first, biggest to smallest, then count on. Never start with the pennies.

Worked example. Two $1 bills, three nickels and four pennies. Dollars first: $1, $2. Now nickels, counting by 5: 5, 10, 15¢. Then pennies, by 1: 16, 17, 18, 19¢. Total $2.19.

Another. One $5 bill, one $1 bill, two nickels: $5 → $6 → then 5, 10¢ → $6.10.

Counting by 5s for nickels: 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, 40, 45, 50.

Oops! A nickel is bigger than a dime but worth less — 5¢ against 10¢. Size never tells you the value. Read the number, not the coin.

Three questions answer almost every bar-graph problem:

1. Which bar is tallest? — that is the most.
2. Which is shortest? — that is the least.
3. How many more? — subtract the two numbers.

Worked example. Graph 1 shows 8 apples and 5 pears; graph 2 shows 6 apples and 9 pears. More apples in graph 1 (8 vs 6, two more). More pears in graph 2 (9 vs 5, four more).

Oops! Check the scale before you compare. If one graph counts by 2s and the other by 1s, a taller bar can stand for a smaller number.

A fact family is one little group of numbers that makes four facts.

Worked example — the 8 family with 3 and 5. 3 + 5 = 8, 5 + 3 = 8, 8 − 3 = 5, 8 − 5 = 3. Learn one, you know four.

The 9 addition family: 0+9, 1+8, 2+7, 3+6, 4+5 — and each one flipped.

Oops! Addition can flip (3 + 5 = 5 + 3) but subtraction cannot. 8 − 3 = 5, while 3 − 8 is not 5 at all.

Both of this week’s stories follow the same shape: the people are out of something → they complain → God provides in a way nobody expected.

• Meat and manna — no food in the desert; bread appears each morning and has to be gathered daily.
• Water from the rock — no water; Moses strikes a rock and water comes out of it.

Oops! Manna wasn’t stored up for later — when people tried to keep extra, it spoiled. The daily part is the point of the story.

The posted letters this week are z, br, v, x and capital I. The two that catch people out are the joins, not the letters.

br — the b ends with a little shelf at the top, so the r starts high, not from the line. v ends high too, so a v joining the next letter also starts from the top.

Oops! Dropping down to the line after b or v before starting the next letter is the most common cursive mistake — the join has to stay up at the top.

The practice test on Wednesday is the most useful thing in the whole week — but only if you do one extra step with it.

After it is marked, write out only the words you missed, three times each, saying the letters aloud. Then have someone test you on just those on Thursday. Re-copying words you already know feels productive and teaches nothing new.

Oops! Studying by reading the list over and over is the weakest method there is. Cover the word, write it, then check — getting it wrong and fixing it is what makes it stick.

Three spellings, one sound (er): er in verse, ur in nurse, ir in bird — all say “er”. You have to remember which word uses which.

Two spellings, one sound (oy): oi in coin, oy in boy. Handy rule: oy usually goes at the end of a word (boy, toy, joy); oi sits in the middle (coin, point, soil).

One spelling, two sounds (oo): the short oo in book and the long oo in tooth. Same letters, different sound — you can only tell from the word.

Silent letters: igh in night (the gh says nothing), alk in walk (the l is silent), all in ball, wor in worms.

Subject of a sentence. Ask “who or what is doing it?” In “The little dog barked at the mail carrier,” the verb is barked; who barked? The little dog — that is the subject.

Oops! The subject is not always the first word. In “Under the bed hid a small cat,” the subject is a small cat — find the verb first, then ask who did it.

Sequencing means putting what happened in the order it happened. Two things make it easy:

1. Signal words: first, then, next, after that, before, finally.
2. The four-box tool: beginning → next → then → end. Draw a picture in each box and write one sentence under it. That is the visual tool your group is expecting.

Worked example. Nate wakes up → he eats pancakes → someone asks for help finding a missing picture → he takes the case and asks questions → he finds it. Five events, in order, none skipped.

This week’s vocabulary is detective language: prove (show something is true), case (the mystery a detective works on), solve (find the answer).

Oops! Sequencing is not the same as telling the most exciting part. If you jump straight to the ending because it is the best bit, the order is wrong even though every fact is right.

Friday’s target is to tell light, thermal and sound energy apart. The trick is to name the sense that notices each one:

• Light — you see it. The sun, a lamp, a screen.
• Thermal — you feel it as warmth. A radiator, hot sand, your own hands rubbed together.
• Sound — you hear it. A drum, a voice, a bell.

Worked example for the Venn diagram. A campfire goes in the overlap of light and thermal — it glows and it warms. A torch is light only. A hot radiator is thermal only. A drum is sound only.

Oops! Bright does not mean hot. An LED torch gives a lot of light and almost no heat, which is exactly why it belongs in the “light only” circle.

rojo red · azul blue · verde green · amarillo yellow · negro black · blanco white · morado purple · naranja orange.

Oops! In Spanish the colour goes after the thing: la casa blanca, not la blanca casa.