As part of 4th grade's study of converting decimals to percents and to fractions, we took a look at some real statistics from both the United States and the world. Using the book "If America Were a Village," we looked at what the make-up of the country would be if there were only 100 people. For example, if America were a village of 100 people, 82 people would speak English as their first language, 10 would speak Spanish, I speaks Chinese, 1 French and 1 German. We then compared the US stats to the world stats (for example, 22 people speak a Chinese dialect, 9 speak English, 8 speak Hindi, 7 speak Spanish, 4 speak Arabic, 4 speak Bengali, 3 speak Portuguese, 3 speak Russian, and 2 speak one of over 5000 other languages.) The kids worked with a partner to fill in charts with the fractions, percents, and decimals for their category. Those categories ranged from world religions, world wealth, ages, nationalities, and more. Each partnership then had the opportunity to share their findings and teach the class about our global village. See evidence of kids working together below or find more pictures on the photos page of the website.
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Mrs. Williams, the music teacher, and I have been enjoying teaching a group of 5th grade guitar students before school. They are making great progress learning their basic chords and learning some rockin' tunes. Check out this video after only our first couple of weeks (and remember that most of them had not touched a guitar before this class!) YES, those are gushers taped to the wall in my classroom. As part of our work on affective goals this year, 3rd grade has been working on peer relationships. Before spring break, I met with all of the gifted third graders to work on that goal. We had a discussion about teamwork and being able to engage in effective communication with peers to achieve a goal. And that goal for the day was to get those gushers off the wall (and into their mouths!) They had 5 sheets of newspaper, a few paperclips, masking tape, and a plastic cup. The students worked together to devise a plan and work together to get the gushers. It was great to see both the ingenuity and the communication skills at work. Check out all of the fun in the pictures below and on the photos page of the website for more. |
Tracey BeanWerner Elementary Archives
May 2018
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