This morning we got a LOT of work done.
We spent almost an hour straight doing multiplication problems. Many students weren’t quite 100% with the standard algorithm this morning, so we did quite a bit of practice to really get that whole process stuck in their heads.
I must say it makes me very happy to see students more comfortable with things like partial products or the area model than with the standard algorithm. It means they are capable of doing the problems in their tiny pieces, and they understand what is really going on ‘under the hood’ of the standard algorithm.
Tonight students have 4 more problems to do. They should do these just like they did yesterday: area model, partial products, and then finally with the standard algorithm. Here again are the notes from yesterday in case they need them:
The four problems they must do are:
356 x 6
612 x 57
274 x 33
152 x 17
Next we talked about our vocabulary list, and how we are really bad at making sentences. Most of this stems from a lack of grammatical understanding, and misunderstandings concerning parts of speech.
We spent a lot of time talking about nouns, verbs, and adjectives, and how we use these different types of words in sentences. If you know something is a noun, then they way you use it in a sentence is different from a word that is a verb.
Too often, we were getting sentences like:
I edict in the courtroom.
Or
I like to get a predict.
So tonight students have some homework dealing with identifying nouns, verbs, and adjectives. They should also REWRITE their ten sentences for their vocabulary list.
Finally, we talked some more about our poetry. The students poems from yesterday were VERY impressive, and ran the entire spectrum from hilarious to horrifying. We have some great poets in this class.
Tonight students should just make a quick acrostic poem. Nothing too fancy, just something new for us to try.
so, tl;dr
4 multiplication problems just like we did yesterday:
356 x 6
612 x 57
274 x 33
152 x 17
Parts of speech exercises:
Also, one acrostic poem in their writing journals.
Finally, read for 35 minutes
Not too bad. Next week will start getting real though!
Have a good one,
-Mr. Potter