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.
