Welcome back to the 2016 portion of our school year! One quick note, Math Olympiad 3 is on Tuesday next week for 4th and 5th graders so please try to make sure your child is in math that day since those contests cannot be made up. Here are a few things that went on our first week back... Third Grade math students are participating with me in piloting our new math curriculum choices so for the next two months we won't be using our normal Every Day Math (orange) books. I am on the adoption committee for the district, and we have narrowed it down to two. This month, we'll be learning fractions from Eureka Math. This week we completed some of the lessons. Today we created a "Fraction Museum" where students had to take a fractional unit and given paper, water, string, and playdough to demonstrate how to create equal pieces to demonstrate their fractions. It was fun, and there were some mistakes we had to fix in the end. Here is some picture evidence of the kids' work (more pictures on the photos page.) 5th Grade language arts/creativity is hard at work again to finish up our last poem for our poetry unit. The students used their math and technology skills to write a poem that reflected what they add up to. Below are a few of the students' examples of what they feel makes them "100% Me." Next week we will leave poetry behind and begin our Peak Projects - nonfiction reading, writing, researching, and creating projects that will take us the next couple of months to create and present. In Friday Folders this week, if your child is in my math class, you will find a letter for you that explains how your child can login and how you can keep tabs on their progress in http://www.XtraMath.org This program is something that we do in class weekly to practice basic math facts. What I love about this site is that it makes the students pass their addition facts then their subtraction and finally their multiplication. Many gifted students THINK they are beyond the need for addition facts. Many of them have found that is not the case. I have written on your child's letter what their % progress is in the topic they are on, and I have told the kids that at this point if they are still on addition (especially in 5th grade!) after 1/2 a year of practice, they need to be spending homework time doing more on this site so that they can pass. Please take a minute to chat with your child about their progress and determine what two nights of the week they would be willing to sit for less than 5 minutes each to do some extra sessions in XtraMath. The better they know their basic facts, the easier more complex math is in class. Fourth graders are finding this to be especially true now that they are in units covering long multiplication and long division problems. Thanks for your help with this necessary piece of math learning!
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Tracey BeanWerner Elementary Archives
May 2018
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