Close to 100

We played a game called close to 100 for math on Friday. 

Students draw 6 numeral cards and use 4 of those cards to create 2 two-digit numbers that will add up to get close to 100.  

Students then subtract their sum from 100 to find their score. 

The player with the lowest score wins. 

Example :  numeral cards = 3, 4, 7, 3, 6, 2

I would make my numbers 63 + 37 

63 + 37 = 100 so my score would be 0. 

Fraction Songs

We have learned several songs to help us remember how to simplify and create common denominators when using fractions.  Mr. Sanders walked by our classroom one day while we were singing one of our songs and asked us if we would like to come teach his class our songs.

Monday we had the opportunity to walk down to the 5th grade hall and teach them something new!  We sang our Rihanna song that has the steps for simplifying, our Taylor Swift song that has the steps for finding a common denominator, and our S-I-M-P-L-I-F-Y rap!  Mr. Sanders' class LOVED our songs and even wrote us a thank you note for sharing :)

Name Kaleidoscopes

We used math to make these cool kaleidoscopes.

1. First, fold both of your papers in half diag­o­nally, then in half again, and finally in half one more time. Unfold both of them and set one aside.

2. Cut out one of the tri­an­gles cre­ated by your fold lines on just one of the papers.
3. With the flat edge along the bot­tom and the point fac­ing up, write your name with large stick let­ters so that it fills the entire tri­an­gle.
4. Now, draw an out­line around your stick let­ters to make nice, thick let­ters that touch all three sides of your tri­an­gle. Trace over your pen­cil lines with Sharpie.
5. Next, place the tri­an­gle with your name on it under one of the cor­re­spond­ing tri­an­gles on the other paper. Trace your out­line let­ters with pen­cil onto the new paper. (It can be help­ful to use a light box or even tape your papers to a win­dow for trac­ing.)

2. Then line up your tri­an­gles for trac­ing so that each cor­ner is made up of a mir­ror image of your name.

6. Con­tinue trac­ing your name onto each sec­tion, flip­ping your name over every other time to achieve a “mir­ror image”. (Flip­ping your name over every other time is essen­tial to achiev­ing a mir­ror image, so don’t for­get this impor­tant step!!)
7. Then, trace over all your pen­cil lines with Sharpie.
8. Color with mark­ers or col­ored pen­cils.

Were those directions confusing enough??  LOL

Your child would be happy to show you how to make one!

Problem Solving

Last week in math students were divided into groups and given a word problem.   The students worked together to solve and illustrate their problems.  Following their problem solving they presented their problems and answers to the class.

Creating Arrays

Last week students were given 12 products.  They were to create an array to match each product. 

Multiples, Factors, & Arrays

Yesterday we began our study of multiplication.  We began by finding multiples of several numbers and viewing their patterns.  A few of the patterns we noticed were that multiples of 5 end in 5 or 0, multiples of 2 end in an even digit, and multiples of 3 moved diagonally.

Today we moved further into our study of multiplication and began looking at arrays.  The students spent somet time exploring our classroom for objects that created an array.  We learned that arrays are made up of rows and columns that are even.  The dimensions of the array are the factors of our multiplication problem.

Johnathan is checking out the 3 x 6 array on the crate.

Grayson is drawing the 5 x 2 array of the drawers in the back of the room.

 Lawren is checking out the 2 x 2 array of the CAFE board.

Ask your child to find some things around your house or on your next grocery trip that come in an array.



Math Choices

We are spending this week reviewing and preparing for our upcoming math test that we will take on Friday.  Today we split up into 3 different groups.  One group worked on Ten Marks while another played 101-201 Bingo, and then one group got to work on white-boards with me. 

I think we are ready to test on chapter one!

Welcome to the club!

Both Johnathan and Alyssa had the privilege of signing THE JEANS today!

Math

Wednesday mornings are super busy for us.  The kids enter the room, quickly place their things where they belong, and then we head back out the door for Art and Library.  By the time they return, it's math time. We began math with our first multiplication test for the week.  While the multiplication test was being given a few students decided they wanted to go out into the hallway and prepare for their sound test that we took today.

I LOVED hearing them work with one another.  They were using FABULOUS elbow buddy voices and working so well together!

Our math lesson today was a continuation of adding and estimating.  The students and I have discussed several times how they typically work quickly through addition problems because they seem very easy. The truth is, most students miss more addition and subtraction problems due to careless mistakes than any other type of math problem.  We are working on SLOWING down as we add so that we can avoid these careless mistakes.

Each student received a number cube today and generated 3, 4, 5, & 6 digit numbers to add together.  The students also had to estimate each of these numbers and add them.  This activity was pretty much the same thing we've been working on all week, but the number cube made it a little more fun for them.  It's amazing what one small thing can do to excite them about math!

Brothers, Sisters, and A Smarty

Our daily data this week was about our family.

We learned that we have 1 only child in our classroom, 4 people with only a brother(s), 11 people with only a sister(s), 7 people with both brothers and sisters, and 7 more people in our classroom have a sister than a brother.

We also wrote a probability statement about our data.  A few of our statements were:

1.  It is likely that more people in our school have a sister than a brother.

2.  The number of sisters in our classroom is greater than the number of brothers in our classroom.

3.  If we received a new classmate, it would be unlikely for them to be an only child.

Finally...We crowned another smarty.  Congratulations to....

ZOEY!!!

Math & Recess

Due to all of the rain last night we had to have recess inside.  This was our first day of indoor recess and the kiddos seemed to find a lot to do to keep them occupied.

Following recess we had math.  We divided into 2 separate groups during math today.  One group played a game called Close to 1,000 while the other group worked on place value, number forms, and rounding on white boards.  Everyone seemed to enjoy math today!

Lastly, there were 2 jean signers today!  Congratulations Joshua and Grayson!  

Pitches and Data

Today in science we learned how vibrations and length effect pitches.  The students used a tongue depressor to investigate how different lengths create different pitches. 

By the end of the experiment students knew that longer lengths created lower pitches and shorter lengths created higher pitches.  They also learned that slow vibrations create low pitches where fast vibrations create high pitches. 

Our daily data for this week is I'm an Alabama Fan.  I'm an Auburn fan.  Each student placed their magnet where it belonged this morning and following art and library we made a few observations about our data.

We observed that 9 more people like Alabama than Auburn, 5 people like Auburn, 1 person likes Auburn and Alabama, and 1 person doesn't like either Auburn or Alabama.

We then took some time to learn a new piece to our daily data routine, probability.  We created several probability statements about our data using terms like likely, unlikely, certain, impossible, less than, greater than, and equal to.

We also took another multiplication test today.  We were able to welcome NyKia to the "Smarty Pants Club" following today's test.  Way to go, NyKia!



Another Smarty!

Sam signed the jeans today!  Way to go, Sam!

Multiplication Smarty Pants

I also try to create some kind of chart or club to recognize students that master their multiplication facts, but this year I decided I wanted to do something different.  I decided to have Mrs. Upton's Smarty Pants hanging in the hallway for EVERYONE to see!  When students get all 100 multiplication problems correct in 5 minutes they will get to sign the jeans.

The inaugural jean signers were Jake & Jack.  Jack took 2 multiplication tests before becoming a master and Jake took 3.  I was proud of these 2 boys!

Three other students were able to sign the jeans following their multiplication test today.  I can't wait for all 23 student's signatures to be on the blue jeans for the whole school to see.

Lots Of Classwork

 We have been super busy in the classroom this week.  On both Monday and Tuesday the only breaks we have taken were PE and recess.  We have worked our little fingers to the bone!

Each student received their Alabama History book this week.  We have begun talking about government to prepare for our upcoming trip to our state capital.  We looked at pictures of our state capital and the Alabama State House.  Ask your child if they remember the 3 branches of government we briefly discussed today.  If they remember all 3 of them then they deserve ice cream after dinner!

 In math today we took a VERY long assessment.  It was 50 HARD questions.  The new math curriculum we have adopted is very different from what we are used to.  It uses a very different vocabulary so the transition has been pretty difficult for the children.  

I will begin sending math homework home once I am comfortable with their knowledge of the material.  Right now I feel math homework would add unnecessary stress to your home due to the confusing terminology.  Bare with me and hopefully it will begin coming home next week.

We began our Physics of Sound unit in science!  Yesterday we discussed properties of sound and today we used our knowledge of sound properties to help us identify the sounds of various objects in our "Bag-O-Stuff."

BE PROACTIVE!  We used the book Bringing The Rain To Kapiti Plain to learn about being proactive.  Ki-Pat took control of the drought on the plains instead of placing blame on others.  Ki-Pat was able to use the resources that came to him to bring rain to the plain.  Along with learning how to be proactive, we also used this book to learn how to be VORACIOUS READERS, and also a little about rhyming.  

Ask your child what it means to be a voracious reader.  You may also want to ask them if they are a voracious reader.

Multiplication Tests

Yesterday students began taking their multiplication skill & drill practice tests.  Students were given 100 multiplication problems through 144 and were given 10 minutes to complete all of the problems correctly.  A few of the students finished within the time limit, but I do not think any of the students got all of the problems correct.  Everyone will be graphing their results on each test in their SOAR Binders.  Check the graph for progress!

Our class goal is to get all of the problems right within 5 minutes!   I know each student can do it but they definitely need to study!

101 - 200 Bingo

During our in-class math club time this week, students paired up to play 101 - 200 Bingo.  

Directions:  Each student begins with a 1 that stays in the hundreds place.

Students draw 2 digit cards and one tens card.

Students arrange their 2 digit cards in the ones and tens place along with their one to form a 3-digit number.

Students then add or subtract the value of their tens card.

Students shade that value on the 101-200 bingo.

The goal is to get 5 in a row.

Multiples

This week in math we have learned about multiples and factors as we have prepared to take our big multiplication test on Friday!
We practiced learning our multiples by shading them on a hundreds chart.

Addition Puzzles during Math Club

During "math club" today we worked on column addition math puzzles.  These puzzles provided us with practice adding with regrouping.

Decimals On A Grid

This week in math we practiced illustrating decimal values on a hundreds chart.  Each chart as 100 squares so to represent 0.47 the students would color in 47 out of the 100 blocks.  To represent 0.3 the students would color in 30 out of the 100 blocks.
After a few rounds of shading the decimal the students began pairing up with one another and using two hundreds charts.  One hundreds chart would be completely colored and would represent 1 whole and the other chart would represent a decimal form of a number.

Parker's grids represent 1.96

Tamari and Sarah paired up to represent 1.96, too.

Angelina and Iman represented 1.86.