How To Blow A Bubble

Today during our writing block I gave each of the kiddies a piece of bubble gum and told them to practice blowing bubbles. They were quite excited to participate in such an activity! Afterwards they  were given their task:
to write instructions on "how to blow a bubble." Everyone was extremely thrilled to be practicing their procedural writing skills with such an authentic learning task! Tomorrow we will edit up our writing and begin sharing as a class!

Data Management

Today we began a math unit called Data Management. In this unit students will collect, organize and display data into graphs and charts. They will also interpret data that is presented in graphs and charts. The main types used throughout this unit will be Venn diagrams, pictographs, bar graphs and tally charts.
This is one of my favourite math units and is usually the students too! We have a lot of fun with many different hands on problems and activities. Before going into teaching I actually was headed down the road of research (specifically health sciences), so I am kinda a "data nerd" as Mr. Linse would say!

Practice Problems!

1. Emma has 24 crayons to put on six boxes. She wants to put the same number of crayons in each box. How many crayons should she put in each box?

2. Ashleigh has 4 pairs of mittens. How many mittens does she have?

3. There are 7 days in a week.

How many days are there in 6 weeks?

4. Erica wants to share her 18 marbles with two other friends. Including Erica, how many marbles will each of them receive? 

Math Test

We have been very busy preparing for Tuesday's math test. This test will cover both multiplication and division. 

Some key ideas to review are:

- Multiplication is repeated addition.

- Students must be able to make addition sentences from multiplication ones and vice versa.

- To multiply you must have equal groups.

- Practice songs and facts (0-7 times table and 10 times table).

- An array is equal rows.

- Division using both groups and arrays.

- Fact families.

- Solving different word problems for both multiplication and division.

I have posted some problems to practice too.

 

Procedural Writing

Today we started learning about a writing form called procedural writing. I kicked off the unit this morning with a really cute activity. I tell the kiddies that I am going to give them instructions that they need to follow carefully.
Here are my instructions:
Draw a square, next draw a triangle, then draw a rectangle and finally draw a circle.
I then ask all kids to reveal the house that they made. Twenty kiddies look at me very confused since they all just had some shapes drawn randomly beside each other on a piece of paper.
Lesson learned... instructions (or procedures) need to be very clear and detailed!

 

Division

This afternoon we began learning about division. Just like many of our math concepts, I teach the boys and girls a number of different strategies for them to put inside their imaginary tool belts. This way, when they are problem solving, they can dig out the strategy that they like to use best. I strongly urge the kiddies to continue to practice their multiplication songs and facts. Being able to recall multiplication facts quickly, helps make division seem that much easier!

Practice Practice!

This week we are wrapping up multiplication and are just about ready to jump into division. I strongly encourage that the boys and girls practice their songs and strategies regularly at home. It is only through lots of review and practice that multiplying (and then dividing) will become quick and easy. Yesterday we learned the 7 times table song and briefly practiced the six song today. We should have the three and four song down pat by now as well as quick strategies for multiplying by 0, 1, 2, 5 and 10!