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Welcome to my math blog! The purpose of this blog is to help you stay informed about our learning and experiences that have taken place during our math class. I have also included links your child (and you) may want to use in order to supplement math learning in 5th grade.

Friday, October 28, 2016

Adding and Subtracting Mixed Numbers Assessment

Lesson Frame:
  • We will add and subtract mixed numbers.
  • I will add and subtract mixed numbers.

Assessment



For the assessment, I posed 6 problems to my classes using a set of problems from Math Tri-Folds (5.NF.1 - 5.NF.7). These 6 problems were basic addition and subtraction of fractions and mixed numbers.


I also had students solve a problem from Error Analysis Math Tasks. This task requires the students to find the error that was made in the computation, explain what was wrong, and then correctly solve the problem themselves.

Think Through Math

Once students had completed the assessment, they spent time on Think Through Math. As usual, I gave the final 10 minutes of our Friday to use their earned points on their Avatar or to donate to a charity.

Thursday, October 27, 2016

Adding and Subtracting Mixed Numbers: Rotation Day C

Lesson Frame:
  • We will add and subtract mixed numbers.
  • I will add and subtract mixed numbers.

Group 1 & 4:  Teacher Time

Each of these groups began by working through last night's Exit Ticket with me.  I explained that the video the other students were watching would be available to them to view as they work on similar problems this evening.


After going over the problems, I gave the kids a problem to solve.  I asked each person to solve it one a white board while I watched.  I gave them hints and help as they progressed, but overall, was pleased with their abilities.

Group 2 & 3:  Khan Academy



Before these groups began working on Khan Academy, I asked that they watch a short Screencastify video in which I explain the process to solving the two Exit Ticket problems from last night.  I asked that they make any changes with a map pencil.  I explained that this was a learning exercise and would not be counted against them.

These groups then worked on solving problems involving addition and subtraction of mixed numbers.  I explained that they were free to watch the videos created by Khan Academy, however, they needed to understand that I am not teaching them in the same way that Khan will.  They are always surprised to find that there is more than one way to solve a problem.  I did attach a few Screencasity videos to their Classroom so that they could watch me solve the problems as an example.


Think Through Math

Every group does have 15 minutes on Think Through Math each day we do a rotation.

Assignment

We completed a Fifth Grade Builder today, and, as an exit ticket, I included an addition and subtraction problem that involved mixed numbers.  Students know to go to their Google Classroom to watch the video regarding last night's exit ticket to help them solve this one.




Wednesday, October 26, 2016

Adding and Subtracting Mixed Numbers: Rotation Day B

Lesson Frame:
  • We will add and subtract mixed numbers.
  • I will add and subtract mixed numbers.

Group 1 & 4:  Khan Academy



Before these groups began working on Khan Academy, I asked that they watch a short Screencastify video in which I explain the process to solving the two Exit Ticket problems from last night.  I asked that they make any changes with a map pencil.  I explained that this was a learning exercise and would not be counted against them.

These groups then worked on solving problems involving addition and subtraction of mixed numbers.  I explained that they were free to watch the videos created by Khan Academy, however, they needed to understand that I am not teaching them in the same way that Khan will.  They are always surprised to find that there is more than one way to solve a problem.  I did attach a few Screencasity videos to their Classroom so that they could watch me solve the problems as an example.

Group 2 & 3:  Teacher Time


Each of these groups began by working through last night's Exit Ticket with me.  I explained that the video the other students were watching would be available to them to view as they work on similar problems this evening.

After going over the problems, I challenged each group to a set of addition and subtraction of mixed number problems.  As these two group are either on or above what we are doing in class, I chose to differentiate the activity:   Group 2 was adding and subtracting two mixed numbers, Group 3 was adding and subtracting three mixed numbers.

Think Through Math

Every group does have 15 minutes on Think Through Math each day we do a rotation.

Assignment

We completed a Fifth Grade Builder today, and, as an exit ticket, I included an addition and subtraction problem that involved mixed numbers.  Students know to go to their Google Classroom to watch the video regarding last night's exit ticket to help them solve this one.



Tuesday, October 25, 2016

Adding and Subtracting Mixed Number: Rotation Day A

Lesson Frame:
  • We will add and subtract mixed numbers.
  • I will add and subtract mixed numbers.

Group 1 & 4:  Teacher Time


These two groups began working on a math sort that required them to add and subtract mixed numbers.  I liked this activity, because it required them to:
  • Creating equivalent fractions to create common denominators
  • We converted mixed numbers to improper fractions.
  • We may have needed to use the Butterfly method.
  • We converted improper backed to mix.
  • We looked at our mixed numbers to determine if we could simplify, which included using
    • divisibility rules
    • prime numbers and multiples
    • common factors.
Group 2 and 3:  Khan Academy


This group worked on solving problems involving addition and subtraction of mixed numbers.  I explained that they were free to watch the videos created by Khan Academy, however, they needed to understand that I am not teaching them in the same way that Khan will.  They are always surprised to find that there is more than one way to solve a problem.  I did attach a few Screencasity videos to their Classroom so that they could watch me solve the problems as an example.

Think Through Math

Every group does have 15 minutes on Think Through Math each day we do a rotation.

Assignment

We completed a Fifth Grade Builder today, but as an exit ticket, I included an addition and subtraction problem that involved mixed numbers.  I just want to see where they are at.

Monday, October 24, 2016

Adding and Subtracting Mixed Numbers

Lesson Frame:


  • We will add and subtract mixed numbers.
  • I will add and subtract mixed numbers.

Interactive Notebook

Today we added three pages to our journal:
  • Changing Mixed Numbers to Improper Fractions
  • Changing Improper Fractions to Mixed Numbers
  • Adding/Subtracting Mixed Numbers

When teaching changing mixed numbers to improper fractions, I use MAD (Multiply, Add, Denominator):


There isn't any fun kind of mnemonic device... just divide!


When working through adding and subtracting mixed numbers, I used templates 12 and 14 from:


In the process of adding and subtracting mixed numbers, we included the following steps:
  • Creating equivalent fractions to create common denominators
  • We converted mixed numbers to improper fractions.
  • We may have needed to use the Butterfly method.
  • We converted improper backed to mix.
  • We looked at our mixed numbers to determine if we could simplify, which included using
    • divisibility rules
    • prime numbers and multiples
    • common factors.
Think Through Math

With the remaining 15 minutes in each class, we spent time on Think Through Math.


Friday, October 21, 2016

Bluebonnet Book in a Day


Our Elementary school decided to read a Bluebonnet chapter book in a school day.  The book was chosen by our Student Council.  They chose for us to read "Crenshaw".  Our librarian divided the book into easy segments that would be read throughout the day.  The kids went through their regular schedule, however, each teacher they had would read a set of selected chapters (including PE, Music, and Band).  This allowed them to be exposed to different ways people read.  The kids loved the story and enjoyed the day!


Friday, October 14, 2016

Estimation with Fractions Assessment


Lesson Frame

  • We will solve problems involving the addition and subtraction of fractions.
  • I will use benchmark fractions to estimate mentally and assess the reasonableness of my answers

Assessment

For the assessment, I posed 7 problems to my classes through a Google form. Each of the questions required the students to estimate sums or differences using fractions.

Think Through Math

Once students had completed the assessment, they spent time on Think Through Math. As usual, I gave the final 10 minutes of our Friday to use their earned points on their Avatar or to donate to a charity.

Thursday, October 13, 2016

Estimation with Fractions Review

Lesson Frame
  • We will solve problems involving the addition and subtraction of fractions.
  • I will use benchmark fractions to estimate mentally and assess the reasonableness of my answers

Review

We reviewed estimation of sums and differences using a Kahoot!  We worked in team groups in order for everyone to feel successful!

Assignment

We spent the remaining class period completing a Fifth Grade Builder and then working on TTM.

Celebrations!

I have one student who has made it to the Think 30 Club!  We celebrated today with chocolate covered donut holes!

Wednesday, October 12, 2016

Estimation with Fractions Rotation Day B

Lesson Frame

  • We will solve problems involving the addition and subtraction of fractions.
  • I will use benchmark fractions to estimate mentally and assess the reasonableness of my answers.

Group 1 & 4

Groups 1 & 4 completed their task cards involving estimating fractions and estimating fraction sums and differences. 

Group 2

I had this group work with math choice boards.  I did limit their choices to the T and H columns.  Today they had to estimate sums and differences using the chosen fractions.  Then they had to write a word problem to fit a topic using the fractions.

Group 3

After reading a blog post by Robert Kaplinsky about integrating Depth of Knowledge into his classroom, I starting looking through Open Middle's fraction activities.  I chose Sum of Fractions  to challenge this group:


I also used the Open Middle worksheet for students to track their answers.  These tasks are called open middle because everyone begins with the same problem to solve and everyone should end with the same answer, however, how students work the problem is open to them.

Assignment

As usual, we finished off our day with a Fifth Grade Builder.



Tuesday, October 11, 2016

Estimating with Fractions: Rotation Day A

Lesson Frame:

  • We will solve problems involving the addition and subtraction of fractions.
  • I will use benchmark fractions to estimate mentally and assess the reasonableness of my answers.

Group 1 & 4


I worked with groups 1 & 4 today on task cards involving estimating fractions and estimating fraction sums and differences.  I am having the groups complete this activity tomorrow and wanted to give some guidance on how to solve these problems.  I was very pleased to note that this group had no difficulty actually adding and subtracting fractions to check for reasonableness!

Group 2


I had this group work with math choice boards.  I did limit their choices to the M and A columns.  Basically, they had to choose 5-8 fractions and determine whether they were close to 0, 1/2, or 1.  The challenge came when they had to write a word problem to go with a topic and a fractions they had chosen.

Group 3

This is my UIL Number Sense group.  Today they learned a new "shortcut" when multiplying two numbers close to, but less than, 100.  I had to cut this group down to 8 this past week.  This Friday, I have to have my team, so this group will be only 4 students next week.  At that point, I will have two activities for my group 3 students.

Assignment

We completed our first Fifth Grade Builder in a while.  I was pleased to see that students had retained much of the new information we had learned before our trip to the Outdoor School.

I think the best part of my day was having a student who was upset that time was up and he had to stop working on Think Through Math!  He is so excited that he is almost to his goal, he decided he would work on it after school during ACE.  It makes me happy to have a student enthusiastic about working on math!!!




Friday, October 7, 2016

Schedule Change



Our 4th graders put on a play for the entire elementary school this afternoon, so our class time was shortened.  I used this as an opportunity to do a little catch up.



As usual, we spent 20 minutes working on Lexia.  "Lexia Reading Core5 supports educators in providing differentiated literacy instruction for students of all abilities in grades pre-K–5. Lexia’s research-proven program provides explicit, systematic, personalized learning in the six areas of reading instruction, targeting skill gaps as they emerge, and providing teachers with the data and student-specific resources they need for individual or small-group instruction."





We spent on final 10 minutes working on our TTM avatar and/or redeeming the points earned this week.  This is a powerful part of the week.  The kids look forward to this "treat" and work hard for me during the week when they know I will make sure time is given.

Thursday, October 6, 2016

Estimating Sums and Differences of Fractions: Notes


Today we began working with estimating the sums and differences of fractions.  We started by using a fraction number sense page from "Common Core Math Interactive Notebook:  Numbers and Operations:  Fractions" by Jennifer Findley.  Basically, there is a page where we can create a foldable that allows us to look at fractions to determine if they are closer to 0, 1/2, or 1.

I also found a website that had a plethora of activities that went right along with this topic and included estimating both fractions and mixed numbers.  The site is called Math Worksheets Island.  What I liked from this was that it laid out three rules to use when estimating sums and differences:

  1. If the numerator is much smaller than the denominator, then the result will be 0.
  2. If the numerator is about one half of the denominator, then the result will be 1/2.
  3. If the numerator and denominator are close to each other, then the result will be 1.
I combined both of these ideas into one foldable.  Then we began practicing estimating sums and differences with fractions.

Wednesday, October 5, 2016

Outdoor School Wrap Up



http://www.outdoorschool.com/camp-champions

We had a fantastic time on our overnight field trip to The Outdoor School at Camp Champions!  In an effort to make this event not only more memorable, but also a learning opportunity, we had a kind of closure today.

Our science teacher is having all of the students write a thank you letter to the parent chaperones that attended with us as well as to the camp counselors who taught our classes.  Our reading teacher is having the kids design a memory page as well as a postcard that we will give to 4th graders to spark their interest in attending next year.

My class had a few different things to accomplish.

  1. We changed out the string in our Outdoor School name tag.  We will use this name tag to earn beads throughout the remainder of the school year.  Students earn beads for citizenship, honor roll, attendance, etc.
  2. We talked about the Outdoor School plaques that students will be creating to decorate our library wall.  Each plaque must contain the name of the group, the year, group member names and an illustration.  These will be due next Tuesday and will be voted on.  There will be one plaque per group.
  3. Next, we voted on the boy and girl from each group that showed PRIDE during our trip.  P = perseverance, R = respect, I = Integrity, D = (self) disciplie, and E = Encouragement.
  4. Finally, I had the students write about the PRIDE they showed during their trip on an index card.  Basically, they made an acrostic with the letters PRIDE and wrote about one way they showed each of these characteristics.
We had about 30 minutes left in our class periods, so as soon as the index card was complete, students worked on Think Through Math.