Now that we have arrived at the end of another month of school and the 100th day of school (officially for us on Monday!) here is an update on where each of the GT math classes have been and where we are headed. Third grade just completed our unit on geometry in both two dimensions and three. We also had our first experience measuring angles with circle protractors. Parents, you should be seeing your child’s test coming home in this week’s Friday Folder (although some of them took their test home for corrections earlier this week.) This week we have begun a chapter on multiplication concepts. This is an important standard for 3rd grade. We are working towards mastery of basic facts still but now completing lessons on application of multiplication in other areas of math and real life. Today the kids were challenged to consider how basketball and order of operations (especially parenthesis) with multiplication might collide. They had to determine all the different ways a player could score 10 points in a game with combinations of 3-pointers, 2-pointers, and free throws. The pictures below are a couple shots of the kids getting their problem solving rolling. Next week we’ll begin to get into multiplication extended beyond just one-digit times one-digit. Monday, February 2nd, 4th grade will take their 6th unit test of the year as we complete our chapter on long division, coordinate grids, and measuring angles. While long division was a challenge, coordinate grids has been easy, and measuring angles has been just right for requiring thinking skills. The biggest challenge with measuring angles is knowing which number to pay attention to on the protractor (identifying the angles first as acute, obtuse, reflex helps!) On Tuesday, we’ll kick off our unit on fractions which will consume the month of February while we learn about equivalence, adding, subtracting, and multiplying. Lastly, 5th grade just completed a test over our fractions unit. It was not an easy test, and I was very pleased with the students’ hard work and perseverance to do their best. Parents, you should see your child’s test in their Friday Folder this week. On Tuesday, we began our latest unit on geometry with first a review of polygons and quadrilaterals. We’ll continue with angle reasoning using supplementary and complementary angles. Today’s lesson required them to look for patterns in the interior angles of shapes like triangles and octagons. We have enjoyed some “spirited debate” the last few days as we remember the rules for quadrilaterals. The pictures below show a challenging activity we did today that required the kids to agree or disagree with statements like, “all squares are rectangles” or “a trapezoid is a parallelogram” or “a pentagon can have 2 right angles.” We are getting really good at visualizing our thinking with this unit. That was evident today as the kids drew pictures to prove or disprove their understanding.
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My "Three for Thursday" has a theme this week: math notebooking. All of my math students have a math notebook. We use it to document our learning. There are four sections: Learning, Math Minutes (mental math practice,) Problem Solving, and a Glossary. This idea of math notebooking has been growing in the education world, and there are a lot of great resources that I have found to help students organize their thinking. In our learning section, we take notes and practice problems to create a reference resource. Most often this section is where we create our graphic organizer or "foldable" to create a visual for understanding math concepts. You can see examples of lessons we have learned below. 5th grade has worked on such concepts as prime/composite numbers, central tendency measures, operations with decimals, factors/multiples, and more. Fourth grade has worked on types of quadrilaterals and PEMDAS (order of operations) and more while 3rd grade has learned about types of triangles, characteristics of 3D shapes, and more. It is evident that they feel these are important when I hear them say, "Can I write that down in my notebook?" Even when I don't prompt them, or occasionally, a student will hug their binder and say, "I love my mobile brain." (A fourth grader last year nicknamed them that, and it seems to have stuck!) Students are allowed to use their math notebook for daily work and even for tests and quizzes. I remind them that their notebook contains their own thoughts and learning and is a resource to be used. The more organized they keep them, the better. It will be a great portfolio of lessons learned when they take their entire notebook home with them at the end of 5th grade. Maybe they will love it so much and find it so useful, they'll even want to take it to middle school!
Coming home this week are the mid-year ALP progress reports. You will find rubrics for math, language arts, and creativity depending on the area of identification for your child. With the rare exception, you should find your child's self-reflection on their work this year, as well as a rubric filled in by the teacher who instructs your student in that academic area. There are also assessment and goal setting checklists for the affective (social/emotional goal) that each child has. Please look them over and let me know if you have questions. Please remember that is just a chance to check in on growth so far. Meeting or not meeting the intended score on the rubric at this point in the year simply shows where your child has made growth already and where more growth is needed by the end of the year. I am usually very pleased to see that student self-reflections are very honest and generally reflect what the teacher is seeing in class. My hope with this process is that it generates a conversation at home about what is going well and what might need a little work. You received an email in October that contained your child's original ALP with goals and services. If you cannot find your copy, please let me know, and I will be glad to send your child's ALP again. Fourth grade is a year for learning foundational algorithms that will be used from now on in math. One example of that is learning to complete long division problems. I sent an email to 4th grade families this week sharing the strategies that we cover in class. In case some of the rest of you are interested in the "crazy" algorithms that we teach in school now, I have attached links to a quick demonstration video from our textbook publisher. To reiterate, my goal in teaching math is always to help students understand both the why and the how of math and learning multiple methods works to that end and also helps them see that math can be creative in that there is almost never one way to complete a problem. In education today we call this the conceptual understanding (why the math works) and procedural understanding (learning the algorithms and shortcuts.) Both carry equal weight in real-world jobs so I try to make sure there is quality time spent in class on both. Alternatives to Traditional - Long Division: Partial Quotients - Long Division http://everydaymath.uchicago.edu/teaching-topics/computation/div-part-quot.html Column - Long Division http://everydaymath.uchicago.edu/teaching-topics/computation/div-column.html Finally, Colorado teachers this year are preparing to switch from giving the TCAP, paper-and-pencil state tests to the new PARCC testing online (based on Common Core and our new standards.) PARCC testing (much like I mentioned above) tries to test both conceptual knowledge (math understanding and application) and procedural knowledge (solving equations and using algorithms.) At this time, our plan at Werner is to complete 2 days of math testing in March on PARCC's performance-based testing (PBA.) Then there will be additional days in May that will be a summative assessment called EOY (End of Year.) This testing will still begin in 3rd grade and continue into high school. I thought some of you might be interested to take a practice test to see what PARCC testing looks like. It is all online now so students will be taking both language arts and math testing on their computers. Follow the link below and then click on the grade level you want to explore. It will open a testing environment that will look exactly like what your child will be seeing in a few months during the EOY testing. http://parcc.pearson.com/practice-tests/math/ 2015 is off to a good start, and we are busy already. Quick schedule note… 4th and 5th grade will complete the third Math Olympiad contest next Wednesday, January 14. There will be two more – one in February and one in March. Fourth grade language arts is in full-swing again this quarter. Both 4th and 5th grade language arts are participating in literature circles to kick off our 2015 time together. Fourth graders are reading books about boys dealing with change in courageous ways. Two groups are reading “Hatchet” and the other group is reading “Bud, Not Buddy.” Fifth graders are all reading a book called “When You Reach Me.” This book defies being identified by one genre so part of the fun of this book is debating at the end which genre the students fill it best fits in (science fiction, mystery, realistic fiction, historical fiction – seriously it has them all!) Please check in with your GT language arts/creative child to make sure they know their reading assignment and their job. All lit circles will begin on Monday, January 12, so your child might have homework for the weekend to make sure they are prepared. Their job could be: Director – Prepare 2-4 deep questions. Summarizer – Write a 6-8 sentence summary. Word Wizard – Define the word, page number, synonym, and quick sketch for each of the 4 words. Illustrator – Draw a picture with details and write a 2 sentence reason why that picture is the best choice. Vacation – Some groups are big enough that one person gets a night off! Every week (usually on Wednesdays) each of my math classes take time to really focus on problem solving skills. For 4th and 5th graders, this especially helps them prepare for the Math Olympiad contests, as well as providing mathematical knowledge. In third grade, I spend time explicitly teaching students strategy and guiding them through the different steps that can be taken to solve a problem. This can be drawing a pictures, using logic, creating a table, or other problem solving strategies (see the poster below that is on my classroom wall.) This week third grade got really wrapped up in a problem which began with a table and progressed into using algebra. They were so proud of themselves when, all of them working in small groups, came to the answer through exploration, experimentation, and a glorious table! The problem stated: How many toothpicks do you need to build a square if each side measures 1 toothpick in length? Now build 2 squares connected to each other. How many toothpicks do you need now? Use a table to figure out the number of toothpicks needed to build a row of 20 squares. These third graders did a GREAT job of sticking with the problem to find an answer and then kept working on it to discover the shortcut they could have used (# of squares times 2 plus 1) - the beginning of algebra! The awesome thing is that when given a similar problem with triangles and then hexagons, they could easily adapt their thinking and, without the tedious process of creating a table, determine the algebra equation to solve the new related problems. Finally, my classes are all about cooperative learning and group work. There are challenges with elementary students working with partners and small groups in the form of respectful listening and polite conversation (especially in our tiny physical space.) After all they are really learning to do these things when trying to complete a task. I find giving them concrete strategies for what group work looks like and sounds like tends to make our time together go more smoothly. Those strategies equal the four L’s: look, lean, listen, and lower voice. To that end, I have put up a new poster in my classroom that we are using as a reminder. And it turned out that using my last name made it a little quirky (see if you get my “joke!”) |
Tracey BeanWerner Elementary Archives
May 2018
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