Last week Mr. Knipp, one of the fifth grade dads, came in to help us with our Stock Market game. Many of the students have chosen to invest in Apple stocks. We have talked about buying what you, as a consumer, like and how that can be a good strategy. However, if you have watched Apple's stock lately, it has been steadily decreasing in value. Mr. Knipp had the great idea to have the kids look deeper than the device you see. He brought in old cell phones for the kids to take apart, as well as an article on what other components are within the IPhone. The hope was for the kids to see what other companies contribute to the success of the IPhone. We hoped to help them realize that these companies can be a great investment because many of them make components that are used in other electronics which make that investment more diverse (and in turn then hopefully less risky as a stock!) The kids had fun using tools to explore. Who doesn't love taking things apart?! Hopefully, this hands-on lesson will pay off in our finance game, as well!
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Why am I posting a picture of a messy whiteboard you might ask? Well this serves as evidence of my third grade math group's creative problem solving from this week. One of our ALP goals for the year is under the heading "Creativity/ Innovation." The goal for third grade is two part: →I compared different approaches to solving math problems and found new ways to solve a problem. →I looked for patterns to create shortcuts to simplify my problem solving method. We have been working on solving story problems all year. This particular story problem asked the students to solve this - "Becca gave Jeremy $30. He spent $4 each day. How much money did he spend in a week? How much money did he have left after a week?" My third graders now understand the concepts of division, multiples, factors, multiplication as repeated addition, and even some basic algebra (a X 5 = 30.) And by the looks of this whiteboard, they are now able to use their logic to solve this problem using many of these methods. We discussed how problems in real-life have many solutions a lot of the time. We also discussed if there is a "better" solution - the answer was no BUT there are definitelyquicker solutions. With our story problem of the week and sharing/discussion, we move closer and closer to that goal of building their brains' capacity to look for creative solutions and seeing patterns. Who knows what problems these great mathematicians will be solving 15 years from now? We can hope that building their capacity for multiple solutions will benefit all of us in amazing ways once these kids are the problem solvers of tomorrow! What a crazy week last week was with the weather? Luckily, we were still able to have a visitor come and talk to both the 4th and 5th grade language arts groups. My friend Tim Northburg has recently published his first juvenile fiction story (called "Bacon Finnegan" and available through Amazon.com) While Tim, of course, shared about his book, he spent a lot more time talking to the kids about the elements of a good story and organizing your ideas to get ready to write. We talked about the different types of characters (antagonist, protagonist,) the point of view (first, third, omniscient,) the setting (time and place,) and all the necessary pieces that must be determined before an author can help a story take flight. I love having access to people that can inspire students to reach for their dreams. Who knows who will be the next J.K. Rowling? You can read Tim's blog and see more pictures about his visit to our school: We (by we, I mean 11-5th graders and I) have just begun an enrichment class on Thursday mornings to learn to play the guitar. I have played now for about 20 years, and I had the chance to participate in a training this year called Little Kids Rock. Little Kids Rock is a nonprofit organization that seeks to get musical instruments into the hands of students and inspire them to play by learning songs that are current. By doing the training, I was able to order 10 acoustic guitars, one electric guitar, and a keyboard so that we can rock Werner Elementary! This year, I decided to let 5th graders be my "guinea pigs" so eleven of them join me once a week, before school for half an hour. This was only our second week, and they have now officially played their first song (and their second!) We are trying out hits from the radio from Black Eyed Peas, Bruno Mars, Beatles, Santana - truly learning to play rock guitar. The video posted below is proof of where we began. I am excited to share more videos with you in the coming weeks as the kids progress.
The fifth grade math class has begun a new challenge this week. We have officially entered the Stock Market Game. Sponsored locally by the Denver Post, students are able to login to the game's website and create their own portfolios with a fictitious $100,000. This week we have not officially begun trading yet but have spent our time learning about these topics:
1. What is a company? 2. What is a corporation? 3. What is a parent company? 4. What is a stock? 5. What is a ticker symbol? 6. How and where do I research stocks? 7. What are sectors? 8. How do I diversify? The rules of the game are basically this: * Each team of students gets $100,000 to trade on the NYSE or NASDAQ. Teams cannot trade on the margin (borrow more than they actually have in cash.) * Stocks must be traded in 100 shares or more. We will not trade penny stocks (those stocks worth $5 or less.) We will not be trading bonds or mutual funds since this is their first experience with the stock market and its complexity. * A 1% brokerage fee is assessed on all transactions. * Students can trade only on trade days during math class (Mondays and Thursdays for us.) * All trades must be completed by May 17 and students do not need to sell everything at the end to determine final portfolio value. (FYI... This is a competition between them, and they do see their rankings when they log in!) So far they are a little confused by the complications with public/private companies and the idea that there are brands, companies, and parent companies (and you must know the parent company to determine the ticker in order to trade on the stock market!) However, I think they are very excited to work their first deal. Even though the money is not real, how often do they get to spend $100,000. I love it when math learning can reflect real-world work, and teaching some sense of finacial literacy is a great idea. Who knows, maybe these kids will be managing your 401K in the future! |
Tracey BeanWerner Elementary Archives
May 2018
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