Area and Perimeter

Area and perimeter are seeming to be difficult to decipher for my students this year.  We've seen area and perimeter questions on Math 4 Today since November but we still need more practice.  I sent home area/perimeter homework on Monday and you will see more come home today.  We did some error analysis today in class to go over the common mistakes I saw on Monday's homework.

For these problem types we deal almost exclusively rectangles so the formulas are easy.  They are not given all the sides usually, but instead given either the length or the width and then the perimeter or the area and asked to find the missing piece. For rectangles as long as they have one side they can figure out the other for both area and perimeter.  I've noticed that the students gets confused as to when to use which formula.  I've made some notes that I am hoping will clear some things up and provide a place to go back and review.  If you have questions, or your child needs more practice, please let me know.

Mini-Golf Project

Today we started our next math project focusing on geometry in the real world! Here is the introduction video.



We will be working on this project for the next month.  I plan on using Google Sketch Up for our 3-D digital design. We will have lots of time in class to practice using this software.  Students can also play with it at home - it's a free download!  I can't wait to see your students' creativity!

GoNoodle Update and Current Events

Our final presentation for our GoNoodle projects will be this Wednesday in the learning lab at 10:30.  We will watch each video with a quick introduction by each group about their video.  I am so excited to share this project with all of you!

I also wanted to make sure that everyone has access to the current events rubric that I shared with the students today. I've also included the example I shared with the students today.  The first assignment is due the Tuesday we come back from the long weekend.

Division Strategies

As we continue to work on division strategies in class, I wanted to share with you what you might see your student doing when solving a division problem.  I took one of our problem of the days from this week and went through each part explaining how students solve it and addressed some of the discussions we've had in class. I hope this helps explain what we are doing.  If you have more questions, please let me know!

Hour of Code

The Hour of Code is coming to Baker Elementary this week!



I can't wait to share all of the computer coding students do in class!

Unit 2 Notes and More

I know it has been a while since I've updated our class blog, but I wanted to make sure to keep you all updated on the things we are learning in class.  Our main focus during Unit 2 is multiplication and division.  Now, I want to warn you now that you won't be seeing the standard algorithm coming home.  We use a variety of strategies most including place value.

Early in the week, we reviewed factors and how to find all of the factors for a given number.  We discussed two different methods for finding factors: 1 Squeeze Method, 2. T-chart Method.

I think that this review was very helpful to students and forced them to really think about factors, rather than just listing what they thought were easy answers.

We have been doing lots of work with multiplying larger numbers as well. Now, I want to warn you now that you won't be seeing the standard algorithm coming home.  We use a variety of strategies most including place value.  These are the strategies we have discussed in class and shared many examples of that the students have in their math journal.  We completed this foldable in class (yesterday for Snodgrass, today for Webber.

Now these aren't the only strategies student can/do use, but are the most common ones that we have talked about and here are examples of how each strategy is used.

This week, we have also been discussing remainders in division problems a great deal.  Students now know that a remainder is the left over that can't be distributed evenly.  In word problems, we have to know what to do with the remainder.  The fourth grade standard says that students have to be able to "interpret remainders".  In our problem of the day this week, each day we discussed four different ways to interpret the remainder:
1. Ignore It.
2. Increase the whole number by 1
3. Make the remainder a fraction
4. The remainder is the answer.

Today we completed another foldable page where students were given four word problems where the equation was the same (9 divided b 4), but the answer for each one was different.  The students had to sort the problems based on how to interpret the remainder.

We will continue to practice this skill over the next week.

Metric Length Notes

This is the last full week of Unit 1 in math.  We are wrapping up our unit by exploring and using the metric measurement system.  Because the metric system is a base 10 system unlike our standard measurement system, this goes perfectly along with our understanding of 10 times as many.  Today we started with length.  We discussed the tools used to measure length - a ruler and measuring tape.  We discussed the comparisons between standard and metric measurement so that students could connect what they already know to their new knowledge.

We took notes on metric length in our math journals today. We discussed how to convert measurements between units  and in the notes are the conversions. Tomorrow we will practice converting between units.

As always, please let me know if you have any questions!

One more reminder, the Ireland Presentations are due tomorrow!!!!  I gave both classes time in class today to continue working. We will will present in class tomorrow.  I am hoping to get them all finished!