8

Family Newsletter

Dear Parent/Caregiver:

Over the next three weeks, your child will be learning about variables, expressions, and
equations. Your child will be using a variety of strategies to create, model, and solve
equations, including using tables, graphs, inspection, systematic trial, and balancing.

To reinforce the concepts your child is learning at school, you and your child can
work on some at-home activities such as these:

• You and your child can create number tricks, as in Getting Started on Student Book
page 250, to try on each other. You can also explore the Internet for sites that have
other number tricks.
• Play a shopping game with some store flyers and a die. Pretend each player has an
amount of money to spend, such as $100. On their turn, each player rolls the die
and must buy that amount of any product in the flyer. The player must write and
solve the corresponding equation to calculate the change. For example, if a player
rolled a 4 and chose to buy an item that costs $19.95, the equation would be
$100 − 4($19.95) = n. That player would be left with $20.20. The object of the game
is to spend as much of the $100 as possible. The player with the least amount of
money left after no player can play is the winner.
• Take turns estimating or calculating how many of a particular product you could buy
with an amount of money, for example $100, and write the corresponding equation.
For example, if an item costs $19.95, the equation would be 19.95n = 100. The
solution would be “about 5.”

You may want to visit the Nelson Web site at www.mathK8.nelson.com for more
suggestions to help your child learn mathematics and develop a positive attitude toward
learning mathematics. As well, you can check the Nelson Web site for links to other
Web sites that provide online tutorials, math problems, brainteasers, and challenges.

54 Chapter 8: Equations and Relationships Copyright © 2006 by Thomson Nelson