Math with Kenza and Ty
Hurry, we’re late to math class!
Over the past two months we have continued to focus on factors and have used that knowledge in working on beginning division with some students and long division with other students. We have also introduced, or reminded students, of prime factorization and the the concept of prime numbers. We will continue to work with factorization, prime factorization, and the exploration of prime numbers.
Students were called upon to use this knowledge in February’s Jeopardy game.
They practiced mental math through activities such as Find X, Contrasting Facts, and Place Value Logic. They also solved math challenges every other week, and completed a facts quiz every week.
We were lucky to participate in the county wide experience of the Santa Cruz Symphony, The Orchestra Swings. This is an activity in collaboration with Carnegie Hall, in which the organizers choose a variety of songs, which represent different cultures, time periods, styles of music, and geographical locations. Through the provided curriculum, students learn about the origin of the songs, geography and history of the countries of origin, and become familiar with the songs by listening to different interpretations. When students arrive at the performance, they are able to sing along or even do some of the dance moves.
Another inspiration during this time period was the movie Counted Out. Watching the movie reminded Ty and myself of the importance of games and we had a few classes in which students played NIM, Balloon Ride, Dots and Boxes, and Beat The Calculator. Some of the scenes in Counted Out depicted some older students engaged in project based learning and our next unit will consist of two project based learning activities for the students.
