Week 9- Math Relays, 3 Free Apps, & Newton's Laws

We started our math this week with a relay race. I love these relay races and the kids really have to work together to get the right answer. It is also a great way to warm up before jumping into multiplying decimals. The relay races are from Lorraine Salmoe on TpT. Check out her store for the math relays. 

We finished up our study of Newton's Laws of Motion so I wanted my students to use the iPad minis to create a project to show they understand the laws. I gave them an option. They could pick Sock Puppets, Tellagami, or Yak It Kids to create the video. 

Sock Puppets (free)

Tellagami (free)

Yakit Kids (free)

I loved hearing them work together and brainstorm ideas!

Some groups even used iMovie to combine each of the 3 laws videos into one. I told them to play with the apps and see what they could do. I'm familiar with each of these apps but I've learned not to limit the kids because I don't know how to do something. Normally someone will figure it out and share with others who want to use the app. 

Here are just a few of the finished projects. 

STUDENTS: This week is our fall break. What are your plans for the week?

Week 8- Close Reading in Math, Number Crunchers, and Newton's Laws

This week was full of lots of new things in our classroom. We started with Close Reading. Our instructional coach said she wanted us to do a close reading with our students before our next meeting and have something to bring back to share. Since I teach math and science I decided to adapt the close reading to word problems. I set up this chart so my students could use it to record the information in their math journal. This is just like our CUBE strategy for problem solving so it was easy for them to collect the information from the word problems and add it to their journals.




The 4th box must contain the work that show the answer to the problem and a complete sentence that answers the question in box 2.





I think has really helped my students with word problems. Some of them see a bunch of words and decide they can't do it. But this has allowed them to persevere and find the answer! Want to hear one of my students explain it in her own words? Listen to Gianna's showme below.



We also spent some time talking about the types of mistakes we make when doing math.



By the end of the week my students were able to identify the types of mistakes they were making and correct them.





(See previous post for the posters- free)



We also played Number Crunchers. (Free posters from the previous post)



Instead of working with a partner we worked in small groups. Each student had their own set of Versatiles and a Smartpal with the problems inside. They followed the Number Crunchers rules to solve the problems. It was great listening in to groups and hearing them share and talk about the types of mistakes that were made.


We have been studying Newton's Laws this week in science. If you study this you MUST check out these activities! My students loved them!

Newton's Laws of Motion Stations









This one had to be my favorite. Parents sent in raw and boiled eggs. I put a ? on one and an ! on the other. The students then had to spin the egg and use Newton's 1st law of motion to figure out which one was boiled and which was raw. I loved hearing their thoughts in this station.





STUDENTS: Which was your favorite Newton's Law Station? Why did you like it the best? What did you do in that station?

Week 7

This was a very busy week for us! We started off by learning the properties of multiplication. You can see Dalton & Ryan playing a game where they had to match the properties to problems on their game board.



Our reading coach, Mrs. James, came in this week to help us with Daily Data. One of the things we learned to do was to make inferences about the data. Then we practiced finding unrelated inferences! Check out the list we generated to explain why someone sold more lemonade from week to week.



We also participated in the OREO project from Projects by Jen.



The kids stacked OREOs and tried to make the tallest stack. There were able to make 2 attempts.



Look at the concentration taking place!







After everyone finished we recorded the data in our Daily Data notebook and used the clickers to create a graph to show their averages.



After we finished stacking the kids were able to use the cookies to create a sculpture. Some worked alone and others synergized!









This week in science we were learning about Newton's First Law. The kids tried to keep the object at rest (penny) while sliding a paper circle out from under it. It took a lot of practice and concentration but some were able to make it work. We started by cutting circles out of cardstock. Then we balanced the penny on top of the paper and put all that on our thumbs. If the students had it balanced correctly they could hit the side of the paper circle. The paper circle would fly out and the penny would stay on their thumb! If they flipped it wrong the force of the paper moving made the penny move.



STUDENTS: Give me an example of Newton's 1st or 2nd law. We talked about the penny (1st law) and riding in a car (2nd law). Give me an example that you can think of that has not already been mentioned in the comments!