Tuesday, September 22nd, 2009

Hello all,

Before starting, I wanted to give a special SHOUT OUT to Mr. Smith, and Mrs. Brewer for helping me compile an awesome list of websites to guide us through our learning process. THANKS guys!!

Today we reviewed Fractions and Decimals again. We did six problems together looking at a number and naming the place value of the Decimal. The students have 7 or 8 problems to do for homework, most finished it in class, it was a very easy assignment. They also were given a hundreds chart and 5 "rules". Using these rules they had to create a design that met the "rules". The "rules" were:

• Have to use Blue, Red, Green and Yellow.
• 1/10 of your design has to be Blue
• 3/10 of your design has to be Green
• 0.25 of your design has to be Red
• The remaining part of your design has to be yellow.

The students had to create two designs using these "rules" and then explain how they knew how many to color with each color. Hopefully it should have sounded something like...
"I knew that 1/10 of 100 is 10, so 10 of my squares needed to be blue, 3/10 of 100 is 30, so 30 needed to be green, 0.25 is = 25/100 so 25 of my squares needed to be red, then when I added the squares that I've already colored (10+30+25) I get 65. I subtracted 65, my total number of used squares, from my total number of squares (100) and got 35, so I colored 35 squares yellow.

Obviously, they aren't going to use those same words, or even that lengthy of an explanation, but for your benefit, this is how they should have decided how to color what!

Monday, September 21st, 2009

Today it Math we discussed changing fractions to decimals. This is usually a very "difficult" concept for many of our students to understand. So, we spend this first day drawing pictures and showing how the fractions and decimals are all the same. It is important for the students to see that 9/10 = 90/100 = 900/1000 = 0.9 = 0.90 = 0.900, they have a hard time seeing that those "extra" zeros are not "necessary" they only help us to see how many "pieces" our whole is cut into.

We color 9/10 of a square, then 90/100 of a square etc. We spend a little time comparing also, for instance, 9/10 is ? (greater than, equal to, less than) 92/100. Hopefully they will get to the point that it is less that, because 9/10 is 90/100, which is less than 92/100. We write decimals on a place value chart. I remind them that when reading a decimal they should say "zero AND nine tenths" The # before the decimal, the decimal should read as the word AND, then they the whole number and then read the place value. I'll upload a copy of the chart later this week. Have your students show you theirs in their JAM.

REMINDER: We have a Milestone this Thursday, please make sure they are studying with you at home!!!

Sunday, September 20, 2009

Welcome to the new blog site for Math. I do not have all of the Math links uploaded yet, but they're coming soon.

Math: Fractions
Monday we introduced what a fractions was and the key vocabulary words Numerator and Denominator. Tuesday they made equivalent fractions by either multiplying or dividing. On Wednesday the studnets learned how to find equivalent fractions utilizing a multiplication chart!!! This is a very useful tool, sit with them and ask them to show and explain the process to you, it's amazing. Thursday, we continued with equivalent fractions, with various numbers missing, on both sides of the equation, and on Friday, they took their weekly quiz.

Remember to check out the Science blog too!!