In class today we talked about expectations, and what we envision to be the ‘perfect class’.  The students were mostly on the same page with this.  They came up with lists of what the perfect classroom looked like independently, but many of the lists were quite similar. We then shared our ideas of what students in the perfect class would look like. They included things such as:

Students are working diligently

Students are being productive

Students are talking quietly when appropriate

Students are listening and being engaged

Students are respectful

Students are kind to each other

I was quite impressed with the students’ responses.  Both for their obvious understanding of what good classroom behavior looks like, and for their use of fantastic vocabulary as they described these things to me.  I am confident that both the students and I are  on the same page when it comes to what our classroom should look like.

Next we discussed the base 10 system.  We talked about how it is called the base 10 system because we have 10 different numerals (digits):

0  1   2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9

These are the only numerals we have.  Thousands of years ago some very intelligent individuals in what is now the Middle East devised this system of counting and grouping things in tens.  It is ingenious how we can use these simple 10 digits in order to represent literally any number we can think of.

 

We also discussed very quickly what a base 2 (binary) system would look like.  In a base 2 system, the only numerals would be 0 and 1.  We talked very briefly about how we could count in such a system.

 

Tomorrow we will continue our discussion of base 10 and counting systems.  We will also do some exploring of other base systems.  One of the questions on the quiz Friday may or may not ask students to count up to 10 in a system other than base 10….

 

 

 

Have a good one,

 

-Mr. Potter