Our schedule has been very interrupted this past week and will be again during this coming week. Due to the water heater break, snow day, delayed opening, and half day schedules, our math classes have not met consistently. The fifth graders have begun their Unit 2 Posttest but need another day to complete them. Hopefully this will happen Monday morning. During our two final classes this week students will be looking at ways to find Least Common Multiples (LCM's) and Lowest Common Denominators (LCD's). This language may sound familiar to you as these are the methods that most of us learned when we were working with fractions with unlike denominators.
Upon returning to school after the break, we will finish up a final fraction review and then begin our Unit 3 study of place value and decimals. This unit naturally follows our unit on fractions helping students further understand the relationship of parts to whole and the relationship of fractions to decimals.
I hope everyone has a wonderful holiday break filled with joy, family and friends!
Sunday, December 18, 2016
Sunday, December 4, 2016
Week of December 5
The fifth graders have been working very hard learning about fractions and how to think about them. Last week they enjoyed using ratio tables to solve many equations and think about how numbers related to one another.
This week we will make the connection to how ratio tables can be fractions. Students will continue to apply their fraction knowledge to various problems, become more comfortable with finding common denominators, and at the end of the week they will take their post test for unit 2.
It is exciting to see how students are grasping these concepts and having "aha" moments!
This week (December 5-11) there is a national awareness of computer coding called "Hour of Code." I have a few websites noted in my resource section that students may link to in order to problem solve and code programs. These skills that they learn through coding will most likely be everyday skills our students will need in their future work lives doing jobs that haven't even been thought of yet. It's very exciting trying to "break the codes" and move to the next levels. Through computer coding I have watched students take challenges, be willing to fail yet keep trying, and move from a fixed mindset to flexible thinking, not to mention great collaboration among all the learners. During this week, many apps are also offered for free to raise awareness and enthusiasm for coding. If you go to the app store and type in hour of code, or coding, several apps appear. Lots of math skills are also included in many of these programs!
This week we will make the connection to how ratio tables can be fractions. Students will continue to apply their fraction knowledge to various problems, become more comfortable with finding common denominators, and at the end of the week they will take their post test for unit 2.
It is exciting to see how students are grasping these concepts and having "aha" moments!
This week (December 5-11) there is a national awareness of computer coding called "Hour of Code." I have a few websites noted in my resource section that students may link to in order to problem solve and code programs. These skills that they learn through coding will most likely be everyday skills our students will need in their future work lives doing jobs that haven't even been thought of yet. It's very exciting trying to "break the codes" and move to the next levels. Through computer coding I have watched students take challenges, be willing to fail yet keep trying, and move from a fixed mindset to flexible thinking, not to mention great collaboration among all the learners. During this week, many apps are also offered for free to raise awareness and enthusiasm for coding. If you go to the app store and type in hour of code, or coding, several apps appear. Lots of math skills are also included in many of these programs!
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