Math

I have not taken many pictures over this last month so this entry will be more descriptive. Thank you all for sending in boxes for our investigation. We began the investigation in partnerships by selecting four boxes and determining three ways in which they were alike or different. I encouraged students to think of number of faces, sides, angles, size, and other geometric terms. They wrote down their observations in their math activity books. I collected more boxes/containers of unusual shapes and we will continue the investigation by combining two groups and collecting more boxes and continuing to explore geometry concepts.

Students have completed three facts quizzes to date.

We have been working a lot on multi-digit addition, going from the concrete, working with base ten blocks and the partial sums method, to the more abstract with the column addition, or what we called carrying in the past.

All students have used each method and most are now focusing primarily on the column addition method. Some students have an easier time completing these problems mentally and are resistant to using the methods, although when I have them explain their strategy aloud and write it down for them, it seems they are employing the partial sums method.

Students continue to solve the weekly challenges independently or in partnerships and these challenges incorporate money, logic, geometry, ratio, literacy, word problems, and operations. They are also working on task cards and Everyday math workbooks independently or in partnerships.

During this time, students prepared food for the Stone Soup celebration with great gusto - making cornbread and cranberry sauce for our feast. We had a sharing circle that focused on feelings and revisited our book from last year, Mistakes That Worked.

For our upcoming multiplication unit, most of the time, students will be divided into two groups so as to facilitate the lessons and group sharing. One group has begun by brainstorming what multiplication means to them and by beginning to create a list of Things That Come in Groups.

Happy holidays to all!