Scrumptiously Simplified Fractions

The fourth graders have been busy learning about fractions. We've talked about equivalent fractions and simplifying fractions. To get some extra practice with these skills we did an activity on Friday with M & M's and Skittles. They had fun counting their candy, recording the fractions and reducing them to simplest form. Of course, the best part was eating the candy! :)

Question of the Week

This week we started something new...Question of the Week! The fourth graders used the iPads to scan the QR code and access Padlet.com to answer the question. We talked about making sure we wrote in a complete sentence and used the correct capitalization and punctuation.  We will do some graphing activities with the information from Question of the Week each week.

QR code for our "Question of the Week" on Padlet.com

Our "Question of the Week" on Padlet.com

Order of Operations and Our Mini-lab

Order of Operations

Several of the fourth graders have completed our work on multi-digit multiplication and have moved onto learning about "Order of Operations". They watched the Math Antics video about Order of Operations and have begun working on solving equations using the order. Math Antics (mathantics.com) is one of my favorite "go-to" websites for math instruction. The kids love the videos on the website and are able to use the computers or ipads to watch the videos to learn a new skill or review a skill that they may need more practice on.

mathantics.com

Order of Operations video on mathantics.com

PEMDAS=Order of Operations

A fun way to remember the PEMDAS-Order of Operations!

A sample of the Order of Operations practice that some of the fourth graders are working on.

Our "Mini-Lab" :)

I brought a few unused laptops from home so that we can have our own mini-lab in our classroom. The kids are able to use them for Kidblog, Math Antics, FirstinMath, looking up spelling word definitions and SpellingCity.com...just to name a few uses for the laptops. 

Valentine's Day Activities

Yesterday was a busy day in fourth grade. In math we did some candy heart estimating. We talked about how useful the skill of estimating is in real-life. 

A fun Valentine's activity that we worked on the past few days was to make word clouds on the website imagechef.com. The fourth graders typed the things they love and chose the colors and fonts. 

What We're Doing

Today the fourth graders took a quiz in math class, but they also did some math problem solving in the form of word problems, Sudoku and Equato puzzles. 

This week the fourth graders enjoyed practicing their basic math facts 

by playing "Sumology" and "4-Way Countdown".

Dividing and Blogging

Division, specifically "long division with remainders", is the topic of study right now in math for all of the fourth graders. Because the algorithm can sometimes be confusing and pretty abstract, we have been using drawings, chips and base ten blocks to help us with dividing numbers.

Yesterday we used the website mathplayground.com. This is a great website for practicing math skills. We used "Dare to Share Fairly" on our whiteboard to practice division with remainders. It provides a great visual for the students to see the numbers being divided into groups.

Any extra practice at home on division would be very helpful! Division flashcards, math games on the computer as well as apps on iPads, iPods or phones are some suggestions.

Has your fourth grader told you about our Kidblog yet?  They are beyond excited about it! Kidblog is an online blogging tool for classrooms.  I used it with my first graders at Morning Sun Elementary for several years, so I knew the fourth graders at Mediapolis would do very well with it.  I introduced the kids to it last week and showed them how to log in on the iPads and they caught on very quickly!

The exciting thing about blogging is that the students' writing isn't hidden in a notebook in their desks at school. It is visible for others to read and comment on. We talked about reading each other's writings and leaving positive comments for each other. For their first posts the students were asked to use some of their spelling words.  Their writing isn't perfect, but it will give them the opportunity to work on their editing skills. 

I welcome you to check out our Kidblog and leave comments if you'd like! All posts and comments go through me first for approval. So, if you don't see your child's post or a comment you've left, that means it hasn't been approved or published yet.

We will continue to use Kidblog to write about various different topics. Stay tuned for next week's fun Kidblog posts! :)

https://kidblog.org/class/Mepo4-W

Lines and Angles

We have been busy in fourth grade learning about lines and angles. We've learned about parallel, intersecting and perpendicular lines. We've also learned how to measure angles and today we worked on constructing angles. The fourth graders think protractors are pretty cool! 

Below are some pictures from this week in my classroom...

Fourth graders working on the Problem of the Day and some review questions about lines.

MathAntics.com has excellent instructional videos that we use in our classroom.

This is part of the video that we watched on MathAntics.com about angles.

mathplayground.com has a great "game" for practicing measuring angles.

Here's a fourth grader using our new favorite tool...a protractor!