Change Your "Math-itude!"

{This lesson is from a few weeks ago, but I wanted to make sure I shared it with you all}. Recently, I talked to students about "mathitude." I have {shockingly} experienced some negativity towards math in our classroom. (Not too much, I can handle it! :)

I decided to have a quick discussion about "mathitude." I personally love math and the challenge it provides. It is often my favorite subject to teach because I feel it is where you see lightbulbs go off in students' understanding and, with a little practice and hard work, children can get better at things they originally did not understand. I guess I'm saying, the learning process is more visible in math and that makes it exciting and motivating for me as a teacher.

I started by asking students to complete the following chart:

After students shared ideas for each side of the chart, I shared comments that I pulled from the parent questionnaires that you all completed at the beginning of the year. It was so interesting for me to see some of the same comments about math pop up again and again. You may notice some of your hopes for your child's math growth this year:

I think students really enjoyed seeing this list that I could say was collectively from our "parents." I'm excited to watch each child grow in perseverance and understanding that math is a learning process--not always something that they should be able to do immediately. In my math lessons, I aim for deeper understanding and try my best to answer the "why do I need to know this" question.

Since having the "mathitude" discussion with students, I think our attitude has changed. We have also begun stations where students encounter challenging and fun problems to solve, hands-on lessons with me, and games with a partner or group. If we need to, we will return to this list to make sure we remember the goals that we have for math this year. Thank you for being a partner in this work with me!

Place Value Houses

Building and engineering in math class?!?! What?!

Last week, students were challenged to build place value houses in teams of four. Students had to use 100's blocks, 10's sticks, and one's cubes to build houses with a given value. To make the task a little more challenging, students did not have the exact number of hundreds blocks they needed to make their houses. They had to use 10's sticks or find another way to get their house to equal the correct value. Later, we made houses with greater values. Check out the amazing, creative work they did:

 

 Super CREATIVE!

Classroom Meeting~Building a Community

Have you heard about Classroom Meeting? Or has your child come home singing "One Day...One Day" and you don't know where it is coming from? (see video above :) Classroom meeting is a time when we focus on building community and learning more about ourselves (aka: human behavior!). At the beginning of the year, I like to introduce the themes that we will focus on in more depth later in the year. This week, we have discussed belonging, kindness, compassion, conflict, and perseverance. These are great themes for building our community at the beginning of the year. To share messages and start discussions with students, I utilize picturebooks, videos, and music in our classroom meetings. Many literacy concepts are embedded in these lessons. As we delve deeper into each theme, students will analyze related quotes and learn key vocabulary that connects to the theme. (Theme is actually a BIG 4th and 5th grade reading concept!) They will also set goals for each theme and reflect on how they did during the week--like coming up with a strategy/action for being more kind during our "kindness" focus week.

On Tuesday, we read Each Kindness. (You can ask your child to tell you about the story and the message). Today, we rewrote some of the events of Each Kindness to make Chloe exhibit more compassion. I also taught students the definitions for compassion and empathy. (This allows us to have a common definition and common language as we talk with one another about these concepts throughout the year. It's amazing what students will soak up during these lessons!)

Classroom meeting is one of my favorite parts of the day! I hope it quickly becomes one of your child's favorites too! 

What is an Engineer?

Mrs. Apelgren launched our Engineering program today. She got us thinking about what engineers do and led us through the engineering design process. Check out this video that defines engineering and describes how engineers impact our daily lives: 

To begin understanding the Engineering Design Cycle, students were challenged to build a structure that could stand on its own using paper towel rolls and toothpicks. The engineering design cycle includes: 

Ask: 

-What is the problem?
-What information do I need to solve the problem?
-What are the constraints and criteria (rules)?
-What information do I have already?
-What materials do I have or could I get?

Explore: 

-Learn new skills
-Play with materials
-Brainstorm ideas
-Decide which idea is best-sketch your idea

Model: 

-Build a model-Make changes as needed

Evaluate: 

-How can I test my model to see if it solved the problem?

-What are the strengths and weaknesses of my design?

Explain: 

-Can I demonstrate how my model solves or doesn’t solve the problem? 

 -Can I communicate ways in which my model could be improved?

We will work to help students get better and better at each stage of the design cycle.

Here are some pictures from our work today: 

Last, Mrs. Apelgren inspired us with a Kid President Video about being an inventor. He visited the GE plant in Durham, NC.

I'm looking forward to what we have in store in our Engineering focus this year! I know your child is too!

Welcome to 4th Grade!

It is going to be a great year! I am MORE excited to see what surprises we have in store than simply feeling excited about what I already know we have planned! It was so nice to meet many of you at Open House. I have heard nothing but great things about this group of children and I am ready to make my impact on their education. As students are learning, I know I will be learning too! It's one of the PRICELESS gifts of being a teacher!

Ready to Learn!

Our Reading Area