I can't believe we have reached the end of the third quarter already! This year is flying past. Grades were due this week, and you will be receiving your child's latest report card after Spring Break from their homeroom teacher. Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns. One last quick reminder related to this is that ALP end-of-year progress reports will be coming in May. The timeline for this is: communicate ALP's in the fall, submit mid-year progress reports in the winter, and write up final ALP progress in late spring. Teaching math is different than when I was in school where the focus was on memorizing algorithms. Today in my math classroom, we certainly still spend time learning algorithms, but we also try to make sense of the concepts and apply them in the real-world. One of the ways that a student can begin to understand a concept (especially one that is tricky or confusing) is by creating mathematical models. In all three of my math classes, I encourage students to draw a picture or use a number line, or somehow make their thinking visual. One example of this from the past week was third grade's work learning to multiply fractions. What I love most about creating models/visuals with kids is that many times they will discover how the algorithm works before I even introduce it. Case in point: while folding and coloring rectangles to represent 1/2 times 1/3 and then 1/2 times 1/4, one of my students shouts out, "Wait - I think there is a shortcut. What if we multiply the numbers on top and then multiply the numbers on bottom? Don't we get the answer?" I didn't confirm or deny it yet. We tried a few more models and tried fractions other than unit fractions to test this mathematical hypothesis. Boy was that student excited when we were able to prove that he was, in fact, correct! See the pictures of student work below for one example from third grade for our model-making math lesson. It was a sad day in my classroom today as I said goodbye to my fourth grade language arts/creativity group. With the end of the third quarter comes my transition to teaching third grade next quarter. The great thing is I will see them all again next year, and I have to brag on the amazing job they did on their final projects for me. Each student has been reading a biography about a famous person from Colorado history. They wrote the ABC facts of their person's life and completed a project of their choice. Today they had the chance to share with a partner and with me. I am including a few of the facts I learned about their famous people and some shots of their sharing time (see the photos page for more of the shots from today.) Note: It was crazy hair day that day!! General William Palmer "V is for victorious because he built a good railroad." by Connor R.
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Tracey BeanWerner Elementary Archives
May 2018
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