Explore math for 3rd grade

[mchel210]

I had a question. Seeing that many of you sign your kids up for the Explore test in 3rd grade...how do you prepare them for that level of math? Looking at the examples of reading, science, and English...I know my dd would do very well...but Im not sure about the math. Do you just let them try the test the first year...and see how it goes? Do you prepare them other then teaching them to use a calculator? My dd8 can follow basic algebra methods...so Im sure she knows a few of the samples. Ive tried to look through prior posts...but I cant find any specific to the younger kids. I see a bunch of posts for 11 or 12 yo kids.

[KAR120C]

Really, they don't expect 3rd graders to get them all right! :) It's meant to have head-room, and it's meant to show what they can do without formal instruction. I made sure DS knew that he was going to see questions he had no idea how to approach and that he needed to skip them and move on, and go back if he had time.

That said, if you want a ballpark guess on how she might do, it matches up remarkably well with 5th grade Singapore. I still wouldn't do any actual prep (because that would only tell you how well she could study), but that should give you a good idea of whether she's "there" yet or not.

In our case it wasn't the math but the reading and grammar. We hadn't done much formal grammar by then except Mad Libs and a little dabbling in editing, and we never did reading comprehension that exact way... so it was a lot of skipping and moving on! LOL