Please remember tomorrow is an early release day. School will end at 12:30.
Picture day!
We took our pictures today after a quick recess. Nobody fell in the mud or messed up their hair *too* much, so we will call it a success.
This morning we began practicing our center rotations. We did this by practicing with different centers in our groups and rotating the centers around the room instead of the students.
We had a talk about centers, and that centers are an opportunity to figure things out. Students should always work together at centers, and their goal should be to come away from centers understanding each concept better than when they first got there. They are not racing to finish a center, or trying to do work by themselves. We talked about how helping others to understand in our group will actually help us to understand concepts better.
Things went quite well, and I only had to give a few gentle reminders to some students to stay on task. Many students did a wonderful job assigning roles and jobs to themselves and others in their groups, and working together to accomplish things.
We also learned and played a lot of the 24 game today. The 24 game is a game in which you are given 4 numbers, and you must use all 4 numbers in an equation of your own design that equals 24.
For example, if I gave you the numbers:
2 4 2 6
One possible answer might be: 2 ÷ 2 x 4 x 6 = 24
Tonight in math students have 2 division problems to do (again showing me what is happening on each line), and also 6 riddle-type order of operations problems. They should look at each of 6 equations, and determine where they would need to put parenthesis in order to get the given answer.
For example if I were to say something like:
6 – 3 x 2 = 6
If I were to normally evaluate this equation, I would do the most powerful operation first (multiplication) and end up with 6 – 6 = 6
This is obviously incorrect. I need to look at the problem and think about where I might put parenthesis so that the answer to my equation will be 6 instead of 0. One way to do this is to simply try different operations first, and see what you get. Another way is to work backwards along the equation. If I know I want an answer of 6, and I see that I multiply by 2, can I make what comes before that into a 3? In this case I can, because 6-3 = 3. Therefore, I want to do that first. This way my equation will evaluate into a simple 3 x 2. I put my parenthesis around 6-3 in order to get that:
(6 – 3) x 2 = 6
MathHomeworkMarch3
We also talked briefly about the two pictures of the Boston Massacre. Tonight students should write me a paragraph detailing which picture they think to be more true to the events that happened that day. Does A tell the better story, or does B? And why do you believe this? There is no right or wrong answer here, as long as the student’s reasoning holds up.
A
B
We ended our day with some time in the computer lab working on Lexia and IXL. IXL is especially interesting, as any time the students gets a question incorrect, it gives the student an explanation for why their answer was incorrect, and how to do the problem correctly. Some students read these explanations carefully, and they quickly figure things out. Other students simply skip the explanations and continue making the same mistakes.
We will have to have a talk about this. Some students need it stressed how important it is to learn from our mistakes. We should be doing our best to figure things out, and not working to simply get things ‘done’ as quickly as possible.
so, tl;dr
Figure out where some parenthesis should go to make given answers. Also do two division problems.
MathHomeworkMarch3
Tell me whether you think Picture A or Picture B on page 286-287 of your social studies textbook is more likely to represent what really happened. WHY do you think that? (about a paragraph!)
And read!
Have a good one,
-Mr. Potter
