We have had a great beginning to the 2018-2019 school year! The fourth graders are adjusting wonderfully to the schedule and switching classes. I am enjoying getting to know my homeroom kiddos and the other fourth graders that come to my classroom for Math.
We've been busy already this week in Math. We will have a weekly focus on a fraction and a geometry term. This week we talked about Polygons. We watched a video on mathantics.com about polygons and wrote the definition in our Math notebooks. We found examples of polygons in our classroom. We also talked about "regular polygons" and 'irregular polygons". Ask your favorite fourth grader if he/she remembers the difference between the two.
Some other math terms that we talked about this week were "quadrilateral" and "vertex". These words have been added to our Math Word Wall. We also reviewed the concept of place value and will be working with numbers into the millions.
To check the students' understanding of polygons, we used "Plickers". (plickers.com) Each student is assigned a card and holds his/her card up according to the answer they choose for the question that is projected on the board. I use the iPad to scan their answers. It's a quick way for me to see who understands and who needs more instruction. The students love using "plickers" and it's a really nice way for me to do some formative assessment so that I can adjust my teaching if some students are not catching on to the concept or skill.
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| A "Plicker" card |
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| An example of a question from plickers.com |
In fourth grade we only have one recess a day. The kids enjoy going outside to play, but one day we had to stay inside because of the rain. They had a great time with the indoor recess things that I have in my classroom. It gave them an opportunity to work and play together.
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| Making rubber band bracelets during inside recess. |
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| Stamping words during inside recess. |
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| Creating things with my Legos during inside recess. |
