The Epic Division Test

This week in math has certainly been a challenge! Long division is more of a marathon than a sprint, and we finally crossed the finish line! I'm pleased with your students' hard work and their determination - after much encouragement - to thoroughly check their work. With the holiday Monday and a field trip Thursday we didn't have a very fluid week to finish our test. Come Friday we were ready to have some fun! A new DynaMath plus a data collection activity and a 100th Day of School Challenge was a great way to end the week.

Next week we will begin data collection and analysis. Through a number of different examples including rolling dice and flipping coins, we will examine probability. We will create surveys and present our data through different visual charts including pictograms, bar graphs and tally charts.

I think we are all ready for something different, but division won't be left behind! We will review through mini-quizzes each week.

Happy New Year!

My math resolution is to keep this paper better updated. This month is division and statistics. We will continue to practice division daily while working on data collection, data reading, finding the mean, median, mode and range. Should be a good change for 2010.

Multiplication and Division

It seems like the whole month of November has been all about multiplication!

Students are making good work of the different steps involved with multiplying 2 and 3 digit numbers by 2 digit numbers.

The month of December will be all about division. Students will first learn to estimate answers, how to look for a close answer and then all the steps in the algorithm of long division. I'll teach the mnemonic of Does Mcdonnalds Serve Cheese Burgers Regularly to remind them to:

Divide
Multiply
Subtract
Compare
Bring down
Remainder.

We will continue problem solving with charts, pictographs, bar graphs. We will learn to find the mean, mode, and range of a set of data. We will comparasion shop and find unit prices. To help with this we could really use some cans and jars (spreads, jelly, beans, etc) that still have a label with the number of ounces on them. If you remember the price, you can write that in sharpie or I'll make it up! These will be used December 16-18.

Taking multiplication to the next level

Over the next few weeks we will begin multiplying larger number (3 and 4 digit numbers) by one and two digit numbers. Our problem solving will include looking for patterns, multi step problems and making graphs. Students will explore functions and create function charts, graph functions and write expressions to represent their function charts. Welcome to Algebra!

I'm still working on making math groups work for the kids so they can work at their own level and have success.

Multiplication and Division

For the second quarter we will focus on multiplication and division through problem solving, enrichment, games and other activities. We will extend multiplication to multiplying larger numbers by one and two digit numbers. We will learn long division and dividing by two digit numbers. The class has varying skills at this level. I will accelerate the students who are ready to move on and remediate those students who need support. To make this happen I will group the children by their needs and "color code" them for ease of reference. Homework listed on the blog will also be color coded to help distinguish between the groups.

On to multiplication

After an awesome job on their subtraction tests (including a few short answer and a math "essay" question) I quickly assessed the class on their multiplication. Most children have a firm grasp of their facts so my focus will be on problem solving and vocabulary. We will quickly move to multiplication of 2 and 3 digit numbers by 1 digit numbers and then on to division!

Subtraction week...

We finished chapter 4 on subtraction, but it won't go away for long! We always review in daily math and we will continue to see subtraction problems in problem solving. Students are becoming better "estimators" with rounding to the same and different digits.
We worked through a number of choice assignments to apply our operations skills, including 24 Game, math crosswords and puzzles, and problem solving activites.
Please encourage your child to check for errors in their work so they are doing their best.

Grocery Store flyers needed

If you get the Sunday paper, please send in the grocery store flyers. We will use them for an activity on Friday.

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L'Shanah Tova!