Another Monday, another full week of opportunity!!
This morning we had a LOOOONNNNGG talk about multiplying fractions. This entire concept is very important, and we are focusing on the actual meaning of multiplication and what multiplying fractions actually MEANS. We are not interested in shortcuts, we are not interested in the fastest, quickest way to do a problem involving multiplying fractions. We are interested in understanding what is actually going on with multiplication involving fractions.
so something like:
1/2 x 4
This can mean 1/2 OF 4, or it can mean 4 OF 1/2. Sometimes we will find that one way of thinking about a problem can lead to an easier solution. We used our math manipulatives (the play money) to help us work out a lot of these problems, and students should use those same manipulatives tonight when they are working on homework.
As usual we took some notes:
Our homework tonight is to do 4 fraction multiplication problems. They should be done EXACTLY as we did our examples. This means a question like 1/10 x 3 should be done as 1/10 OF 3, AND as 3 OF 1/10. These don’t look the same, but they give us an equivalent answer. As always, there are examples that precede the homework:
multfracexamplesandhomeworksep12
In Language Arts we barely had time to talk about our new vocabulary words and our new root this week: dict. Monday schedules are so screwy. Tonight students should work on their vocabulary squares (rectangles really) for the first four words on their vocabulary list. They should also know how to spell these! The vocabulary test is the only test during the week where spelling matters.
In science we went and measured and watered our plants. Lots of our plants are actually growing quite well. Some are measuring almost 20cm already. However some of our plants didn’t fare too well in the last week, so we will be replanting some of our seeds tomorrow. We got to talk about how spiders being around our plants is actually a good thing today. Ask your student if they remember why spiders are good for our plants. (hint: they eat the bugs)
So, tl;dr
Some multiplying fractions problems, JUST as we did them in class (use your play money!)
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First four vocab word squares in vocabulary journal
And read!
Have a good one,
-Mr. Potter