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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Tracey BeanWerner Elementary Archives
May 2018
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