Before we get to the math, I just wanted to thank the Green Team (many members happen to be in our class), for the poetic, funny, and informative character education assembly on Wednesday. Clairlea celebrated honesty and looked at the connections between honesty and environmental stewardship. Wonderful! Special thanks to Ellie and Kamal.
Now to the math... This past Tuesday, our class participated in a Demonstration Math Class for a guest teacher and our Math Instructional Leader, Susan Pitre. Mr. Steers and I co-taught a lesson on estimation and area. Mr. Steers got the brain juices flowing by asking the students to estimate how many little cups of water it would take to fill a tall glass. The children were completely engaged in this activity and the students who were selected to offer estimates learned a lot about reasonable and unreasonable estimates as the activity played out. The problem solving task involved estimating how many wet paintings would fit onto a newspaper. The paintings couldn't overlap each other or hang off the edge of the newspaper. Students had two sizes of paintings to work with. They used recycled paper to serve as the paintings.
After being presented with the problem, students examined the question closely and they decided what the know, what they want to know, and special conditions of the problem. This graphic organizer is called a KWC chart. We use it quite a bit during three-part problem solving.
Next, the children got to work in pairs. They had to agree on an estimation of how many sheets of paper would fit on the newspaper and then they had to test out their estimation and glue those sheets down.
There were many different methods of estimating, including benchmarks such as markers, hands, etc. One group grabbed rulers and started measuring.
It was fascinating watching these unlikely duos working together, strategizing, and discussing area.
At the end, three pairs were asked to come to the carpet for a math congress
Below are the highlights and summary of the learning that took place. These were actual comments from the students. Ms. Pitre was impressed by the way in which students connected different concepts they have already learned in math, to area. "It gave me goosebumps," she said. I'm so proud of the girls and boys in our class. I hear advanced concepts from all subject areas explained every day and it felt good having other adults in the room hearing what your children have to say. Big ideas!
Yesterday, we followed up with another area activity in which students had to estimate the area of their footprint using centimeter graph paper. After "locking in" their estimation, they traced a foot and counted the squares. Most people (myself included) underestimated the size of their feet.
After being presented with the problem, students examined the question closely and they decided what the know, what they want to know, and special conditions of the problem. This graphic organizer is called a KWC chart. We use it quite a bit during three-part problem solving.
Next, the children got to work in pairs. They had to agree on an estimation of how many sheets of paper would fit on the newspaper and then they had to test out their estimation and glue those sheets down.
There were many different methods of estimating, including benchmarks such as markers, hands, etc. One group grabbed rulers and started measuring.
It was fascinating watching these unlikely duos working together, strategizing, and discussing area.
At the end, three pairs were asked to come to the carpet for a math congress
Below are the highlights and summary of the learning that took place. These were actual comments from the students. Ms. Pitre was impressed by the way in which students connected different concepts they have already learned in math, to area. "It gave me goosebumps," she said. I'm so proud of the girls and boys in our class. I hear advanced concepts from all subject areas explained every day and it felt good having other adults in the room hearing what your children have to say. Big ideas!
Yesterday, we followed up with another area activity in which students had to estimate the area of their footprint using centimeter graph paper. After "locking in" their estimation, they traced a foot and counted the squares. Most people (myself included) underestimated the size of their feet.
