It has been a great first week back from our holiday break. The kids did a wonderful job getting back to work. We were able to cover a lot of ground. Here are some of the highlights of the week:
MATH
We spent the week reviewing how to do lattice multiplication. This method is just another tool that the students may use to solve more difficult multiplication problems. I created a video tutorial to explain the process and how it connects to partial products. This week also brought the start of our basketball math season. Building on the skills learned during football math, the students will again use real life statistics to simulate basketball games. Each student will play one game against each of the other students in the class. We will then have our own version of March Madness. It should be a lot of fun. All the students should continue to work on their basic facts. I have seen excellent progress, but there is still some room for improvement.
SCIENCE
This week we had some interesting discussions about the causes and effects of acid rain. We will continue our discussion of pollution next week when we talk about farm and salt run-off. I think the favorite part of the week for most of the kids was the pH activity we did today. The students brought in a variety of household substances so that we could test the pH in each of them. Lots of truly investigable questions were generated from this activity. Here are some examples:
* What would happen to the pH if you mixed some of the substances?
* How do you measure the pH of thick substances (i.e. jello, chocolate syrup)
* Would different flavors of soda have different pH levels?
Be sure to check out a few of the pictures from today's activity.
Have a wonderful weekend!!!!!!
Friday, January 7, 2011
Thursday, October 14, 2010
End of the First Quarter
Hello all,
I know it has been a while since my last post, but better late than never. I want to let you know how proud I am of all of your children. We have made a great deal of progress since the beginning of the year and I predict great things for your children in the future. We have been working on both or terrariums and data analysis this week. The kids seem to really be enjoying the football math activity we have started doing each week. Here are some of the skills that are being introduced and reinforced through Football Math:
* Reading and following directions
* Multiplying (decimals, two-digit factors, basic facts)
* Dividing (with remainders, long division, repeated subtraction)
* Percents
* Addition
* Averages
As you can see, Football Math does a lot of great things for the students mathematical development. Your child may struggle at first, but the more they are exposed to these skills the more fluent they will become. I have added a couple of new websites to the Math Links that may help your child practice their facts and other skills. One such website is KidsNumbers. Caroline Cherry told me about this site today and there is a great section that helps with long division. I believe it is called Snorks on Division of something to that effect. Also, there is the Free Rice site. It is a way for students to help work on math while helping out the hungry.
I hope that everyone enjoys a great long weekend with your children. Take care.
I know it has been a while since my last post, but better late than never. I want to let you know how proud I am of all of your children. We have made a great deal of progress since the beginning of the year and I predict great things for your children in the future. We have been working on both or terrariums and data analysis this week. The kids seem to really be enjoying the football math activity we have started doing each week. Here are some of the skills that are being introduced and reinforced through Football Math:
* Reading and following directions
* Multiplying (decimals, two-digit factors, basic facts)
* Dividing (with remainders, long division, repeated subtraction)
* Percents
* Addition
* Averages
As you can see, Football Math does a lot of great things for the students mathematical development. Your child may struggle at first, but the more they are exposed to these skills the more fluent they will become. I have added a couple of new websites to the Math Links that may help your child practice their facts and other skills. One such website is KidsNumbers. Caroline Cherry told me about this site today and there is a great section that helps with long division. I believe it is called Snorks on Division of something to that effect. Also, there is the Free Rice site. It is a way for students to help work on math while helping out the hungry.
I hope that everyone enjoys a great long weekend with your children. Take care.
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