Week 4- Math Games & Energy

The best part about teaching math is being able to use games to practice what we've been learning. It is great when the game is over and you tell the students they just practiced math and they can't believe it was fun.

I put the students in pairs and they wrote place value columns on their desk. Then each took turns rolling a 10 sided dice (0-9). Each student had to use the number rolled to fill in their chart. On the top row they were trying to make the highest number and on the bottom row they tried to make the smallest number. Once the number was completed they compared their numbers to see who had the highest/lowest (depending on the round). The winner earned a ticket for the good job jar. 

We also did a science experiment to compare how the drop height of a bouncy ball effected how high it bounced. This helped to learn about potential and kinetic energy. The higher you held the ball to let it go, the higher it bounced off the ground. 

I also gave each group an iPad mini and had them take pictures to document their results. We ran out of time this week but next week we are going to complete graphs and make a video explaining what was learned during the experiment. 

I started introducing math games for the students to play during math rotations. 

Like I said at the beginning of the post, I love using games for math! I think my students enjoy them too. 

Here are a few more pictures of my students sharing their place value posters. 

I've had a few questions about the guidelines I gave them. If you are interested in having your students do this you should look at the Place Value Poster Project on TpT by Confessions of a Teaching Junkie. It has student directions and rubric to grade the project. 

Today I also had my students hand out happy notes to people in the school building. My mom sent me some notes she found that have positive quotes and Disney characters on them. As soon as I saw them I knew what I would use them for. My kids wrote a happy note on the back and signed them. On the way to recess, they stopped in classroom to give them to teachers, siblings, or even a student they didn't know. We have been talking a lot about random acts of kindness. A happy note doesn't cost a thing and it puts a smile on someone's face. 

STUDENTS: Do you have an idea of a Random Act of Kindness (RAK) we could do? Share your idea here to earn a ticket for the good job jar. Remember, RAKs don't have to cost a dime! 

Week 4- Energy Fun, Math Board, Daily Data, & Eating Bugs

This week I taught my class 2 more Wordtoons. They learned how to draw a fish from the word fish. They also drew a UFO from the word UFO. Take a look at some of their work.




This week I also taught the kids several new math games and let them play with them. Each person got to choose one of the games I taught to test.



Double Shutter





Cirplexed






Qwirkle- I only found two mistakes and that's pretty good for the first time with this game. I think this one is a little more challenging.



Q-bitz



Can you tell I like games from Mindware? The kids loved them as well. So I picked a few students to use a new app on my iPad and create a Gami to explain which games they liked the best. Check out a few of our new Gamis! Like the app and want to use it with your students? It is called Tellagami.




This week during Morning Meeting I shared this book and we talked about some of the insects people eat.



Then I pulled out the crick-ettes and most of my students ate one.



Some of them thought there were pretty good.


Others were completely grossed out!



I've had a few people asking about my Math Synergy board so I thought I'd post a few pictures of what we've done since school started. You can see the number of the day, which was 14 in this picture.




The kids take the number and draw as many arrays that they can with 14 tiles. This helps them to determine if the number is prime or composite.



I also added this chart for today's number. We write the number as a fraction, equivalent fractions, decimal, percent, and ratios. We have a part to whole and part to part ratio.

 

We also complete our Daily Data notebook on Thursday. Throughout the week the kids get to vote to answer a question. This week the question was "What is your favorite kind of M&M?" Peanut or plain

The students write the following things in their composition notebook for daily data:
question of the week
draw the venn diagram with totals
draw a bar graph
I1 & I2- Write 2 inferences about the data from the graph.
Who cares? Write 2 people who would care about this data and explain why.


Later I'll add a few more things but that's all we do right now.




We wrapped up the week with an experiment to explore potential and kinetic energy. Students used a tape measure to measure the bounce height of a bouncy ball when dropped from different heights.






Then they completed the chart with the heights from their groups, average bounce heights for each, and a graph of the data.



Students mentioned they thought this was math. We talked about the fact that you use math in science a lot.



STUDENTS: Create a question for our daily data board. What would you like me to ask and what would the two choices be?