MathThis week we continued to work with number stories and number lines. Children make a natural progression from counting to basic addition - but there's a key moment along the way. It comes when they realise they don't have to count all the way from one each time. Using the example of 3+4, children start out by counting on fingers from one to three, then they count four more to get seven. There's nothing wrong with this method - it's a natural stage - but there's a bit of needless counting going on. Soon they'll realise this and start at three and the count on to seven. Number lines are a great way to accelerate this development. Number lines provide a mental strategy for addition and subtraction. It's easy to think of them as a kind of crutch for the struggling, but not so, research has shown they're important because they promote good mental arithmetic strategies. Learners soon graduate from using simple number lines to visualizing one in their mind - this is when the humble number line has done its job! This week I posed the following tasks and had volunteers hop on the large number line on the floor while the rest of the children followed along using their own number line. We had children note the starting number, how many hops were taken, and the ending number for each:
Children observed that starting at 0, counting up 3 hops and then 4 more hops has the same result as starting at 3 and then counting up 4 hops. This connects the counting all addition strategy to the counting on strategy.
Children observed that moving 0 hops means not moving at all and that hopping back the same number as the starting number means landing on 0 because there is no difference between the numbers.
Children observed that counting up 3 hops from 7 gives the same sum as counting up 7 hops from 3. We were reminded of the turn around rule. This week, we also began to add and subtract using unknowns (blanks) in all areas of a question. We used the number line to help us. Some examples can be found below:
Language ArtsOur phonics focus this week was looking at the letter 'y' as a vowel when it comes at the end of the word. We used our knowledge of syllables to find out what sound it usually makes. We used sorts and hunts to solidify this concept. Word sorts are so important for early readers. Categorizing is the fundamental way that humans make sense of the world. When students sorts words they are engaged in the active process of searching, comparing, contrasting, and analyzing. Word sorts help students organize what they know about words and to form generalizations that they can then apply to new words they encounter in their reading This week we looked at the life cycle of a pumpkin during our unit of inquiry. During language arts time, students read, and wrote all about pumpkins. One new type of word we looked at were adjectives. Students worked in groups to come up with a number of adjectives to describe their pumpkin. When reading and writing, children learn to think deeply and they learn what sentences have meaning. When we write sentences the most important facts are nouns and verbs. We have to use them when we write sentences. However, if we want to write better sentences, we use adjectives and it is quite important. The reason adjectives are important is that adjectives describe nouns and make sentences more meaningful. As your children learn more about writing, they will start to use adjectives. Please come up with adjectives for all types of things and people in your lives. Unit of InquiryThis week, we took a look at the plants we grew from seeds and started to tend to our garden, making sure that it is watered and weeded. We followed up on our home-learning from last week about seed dispersal. We reviewed seed dispersal methods, and then worked in groups on a design challenge to see who could create a seed dispersal method that could get their seed to travel the furthest off the balcony. Design is our future. Have you heard that phrase before? People are writing books about it, TED is talking about it, and innovation consultancy IDEO is banking on it. Design helps innovators dream big, while dreaming big on something that people really need. So why should you care? Because our kids are our future, just like design, and if they’re better prepared for the modern world, the modern world will get better. I will digress further about design thinking later in this blog post. When we finished wrapping up our home learning, we began exploring the life cycle of a pumpkin. I love looking at this life cycle because it is a little different than that of a flower, and lets us learn about vines, a new part of a plant. We learned about the parts of a pumpkin and some other fun facts. After that, Mr. Joe came to join us for a 'Run Away Pumpkin' Design challenge. We watched the video below and read the book "Marley and the Runaway Pumpkin" to get our brains ready for the challenge, and to connect literacy to our unit of inquiry. Students were presented with another design challenge. To build a ramp to make a pumpkin travel the furthest. We learned about friction, inclined planes, measurement, shape, materials, and design thinking. Now we are back to the topic of design thinking: Design Thinking is a methodology used by designers to help them solve complex problems and create solutions & products that meet people’s needs. It’s solution-based thinking that starts with a general goal, not just a specific problem to help create broader ideas. The next day, we dissected one of our pumpkins. Students looked at all of the parts of the pumpkin first hand, feeling and exploring the: rind, pulp, strands, seeds, ribs and stem. We also baked the pumpkin, mashed it, and used it in a recipe to make pumpkin bread. We then roasted, spiced and ate the seeds. I encourage you to try this at home with the recipes above. I love cooking with children, it teaches so many skills 1. Math Skills: division, counting, measuring capacity, measuring temperature, measuring time 2. Reading Comprehension: Reading and understanding step-by-step directions, adding ingredients in sequence, and techniques such as folding and blending, are all important components to yielding the finished food product. Helping your child fine tune his or reading comprehension skills at the same time doesn't hurt! 3. Real Life Science: Cooking is a science experiment. Too much salt, baking powder, not enough flour, or the wrong timing and you're likely to have a flop on your hands. Cooking provides an opportunity for kids to get hands-on experience with basic science. 4. Self-Esteem: Cooking allows kids to get instant feedback, which helps them learn and grow in self-knowledge. Learning a new skill, such as baking or cooking, is known to help grade school children with healthy self-esteem development. 5. Communication: A relaxed atmosphere in the kitchen offers an opportunity to talk, about anything! Parents can take advantage of this, as communication is a key element to raising a well-adjusted, healthy child. 6. Life Skills: Cooking is a life skill, much like driving a car, learning to read, or swimming. As children grow and get closer to adulthood, the job of feeding becomes theirs. Start the cooking lessons at a young age so the transition to adult cook is easy later on. With the rest of our pumpkins, we opened them up for jack-o-lanterns, checked to see if they float, measured their circumference with paper clips, measured their heights with cubes, counted their seeds, and planted some seeds. There was so much Math happening, and so much fun. We had a blast exploring pumpkins, and are excited to design and carve our jack-o-lanterns next week. I am so happy we are all back at school together,
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March 2018
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