What's Happening

We did a new kind of "warm-up" for Math today. This came from the book Codebreakers. We started off with some easy puzzles and will work our way to the harder ones.  

When the students finish their work in my classroom, they often times have Picture Equation Challenges to figure out. This is similar to the Codebreakers that we did for our warm-up today. These can be somewhat challenging and many of the students want to give up without much effort. An important life skill is perseverance and this is a great way to practice that skill! Here is today's Picture Equation Challenge:

 I introduced the fourth graders to some of the math games that I have in my classroom. They were excited to try them out! They are a great way for them to get extra practice in basic math facts and other important math skills.

Playing Frog Math games

The Py game

Practicing basic math facts with The Py game.

Multiplication Squares

A Few Things...

Conferences

Your child should have a note letting you know what time your conference is scheduled for next week. If that note is missing, just email me (willisl@mepoedu.org) and I'll let you know the scheduled time. 

Rounding and Estimating

We've been busy practicing our Rounding and Estimating skills the past few weeks. This is a real-world math skill that is very important for them to be able to do. Next week we will practice rounding money, another important real-world skill.

Perimeter

We have also been working on figuring out the perimeter of an object. We will continue to practice that skill throughout the school year and we will work on figuring out area as well. 

24 cards

Can you use all of these numbers to make 24? This is a fun challenge that my fourth grade students do when their other work is complete. 

Fourth Grade Fun!

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.

Our fraction focus this week was on the fraction 1/2. We drew pictures in our Math notebooks and talked about fractions that are equivalent to 1/2.

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.

A "Plicker" card

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.

Making rubber band bracelets during inside recess.

Stamping words during inside recess.

Creating things with my Legos during inside recess.

Math Jenga and Math Workshop

The fourth graders are excited about something new called "Math Workshop". During Math Workshop I meet with students in small groups to work on skills taught in class. It gives the students another opportunity to practice those skills and it provides me with a closer look at how they are doing on those skills. The students that have grasped a skill can also move on to a higher skill. Right now we have been concentrating on fractions...simplifying them, finding equivalent fractions and will soon move on to adding and subtracting fractions with like and unlike denominators.

On Wednesday we played "Math Jenga" during math class. It is a fun way to review some math concepts. The fourth graders loved it!

Here is our Question of the Week for this week:

Have a wonderful weekend! :)

Question of the Week

This week I introduced my homeroom to our "Question of the Week". I used a website called padlet.com to create the board. Each week there will be a new question for the fourth graders to answer. We will use the information for different types of graphing. This is also a great way for the students to practice their writing, editing and typing skills. They are asked to type their answers in a complete sentence and justify their answers. Once their response is "approved" by me, it appears on our Question of the Week board for everyone else to read. You can see our Question of the Week board by clicking HERE, or by clicking the link on the right side of my blog menu under "Quick Links". 

(Click on the photos for a larger view of them.)

Our first Question of the Week board on padlet.com

Question of the Week

Using the laptops in our classroom to type answers to the Question of the Week.

Aren't They Cute?

Our ornaments are finally done! Aren't they cute? Thanks for sharing your sweet little fourth graders with me in 2017. I'm looking forward to spending time in 2018 with them. We still have a lot to learn in Math! :) Have a merry Christmas and a very happy New Year!

A Brief Update

Yesterday I introduced two new math puzzles to the fourth graders. They are pictured below. Both puzzles came from Greg Tang (www.gregtangmath.com and tangmath.com). They are fun ways for the students to practice problem solving and basic facts at the same time. They seem to really enjoy doing these math puzzles! Ask your favorite fourth grader to tell you about them.

 We have begun making our Christmas ornaments in my homeroom. To say that the fourth graders are excited to make their ornaments would be an understatement! :)

Simple Things

The school year ended last spring and I didn't get a garden planted like I had wanted. The weather didn't cooperate and I was too busy with end of the year things and home projects. But, at the end of June I was able to prepare my garden for some planting. Pumpkins and squash occupied most of the garden, along with the large rhubarb plants for which I am so thankful.

I planted the mini pumpkins for my future students. The ones that I didn't know yet, but share my classroom with now. I was so excited to watch the pumpkins grow and hoped that they'd be ready just in time for my new fourth graders.

In late September I began harvesting the mini pumpkins and some larger ones too. I ended up with plenty of pumpkins to share. Little did I know, giving a mini pumpkin to each of my homeroom kids would be such a big deal to them. They saw the basket full of pumpkins sitting in our classroom and waited for the day I would let them pick one out to keep. Last Friday was the day and they were so excited! Such a simple thing...

https://photopeach.com/album/cr2v62

 

The Amazing Race

 We did a fun activity last Friday as a warm-up in Math. The activity is called "The Amazing Race". I found it on the website MrElementaryMath. It's a great way to build number sense. The fourth graders worked in groups and had to come up with equations for the number that they were given.

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We made a list on the board of all of the equations that they came up with. This was just a practice round, as we didn't really play it as a race. Now that they know how to do the activity, next time we might try it as a race!

First in Math

The 4th graders are very excited about "First in Math". They have their log-in information on their Student Planners and are welcome to access it from home to get extra math practice.