Tuesday Tuesday Tuesday!
Ok…multiplying fractions. This is proving to be quite challenging for students. That’s ok. We’re running into some issues because some students are still rocky on what fractions actually are. A fraction like 1/2 describes ONE piece of something that has been split into TWO equal parts. 3/4 describes THREE pieces of something that has been divided into FOUR equal parts.
Again, we are very interested in CONCEPTS here. What exactly does multiplying by a fraction MEAN? Oftentimes the ‘x’ symbol means “of”. For example, 2 x 3 can mean 2 group OF 3. So something like 1/2 x 3 can means 1/2 OF 3.
Tonight students have some more fraction multiplication problems to do. They may pick just one way to do each problem. For example if they have something like 3 x 1/2, they may either do 3 OF 1/2 or they may do 1/2 OF 3. They should be careful though…usually one way is much easier than the other. Students who are still having some difficulty with this concept should definitely continue to try both ways.
After these problems they have a question (really 4 questions) to respond to. I expect a well thought out response here. Not one sentence, and probably something involving some pictures explaining their thinking.
In Social studies today we read some more about explorers and talked about what life was like for sailors on the ships making those extremely long voyages. The students learned that being a sailor during these times was not glamorous or adventurous so much as it was dirty and dangerous. Ask the students if they remember what scurvy was, or what sailors often ate.
Tonight students have some reading to do. They should use this reading to help them label the parts of a Spanish Galleon.
We then read a whole bunch of the Mysterious Benedict Society. This book is so great. The kids are getting ready to travel to the mysterious Nomansan Island where they will spy on Ledroptha Curtain and figure out why he is sending these subliminal messages all across the globe.
Tonight students should do vocabulary squares for the next 4 words on their -dict list.
In science we started talking about ecosystems and biomes and somehow ended up talking about our gut biomes and all the little things that live on our bodies. I seriously have no idea how these things get this way sometimes. Oh well. After that we went outside and replanted some seeds of some of our plants that had unfortunately died. Hopefully these plants fare better.
so, tl;dr
Answer some math problems and a math prompt:
next 4 words of vocab list vocab squares:
Label a Spanish Galleon
and read!
Have a good one,
-Mr. Potter