My 5th graders got a problem that wasn't in any of these but was a quick blurb in an old Mailbox magazine. Each group got an index card with a number 1-10 on it. They had to use 3 or 4 4's (AND ONLY 4's) and PEMDAS to find the answer on their index card. To make it easy on you, here is an answer guide (but keep in mind for many there is more than one way to solve it.) 6 and 10 pose probably the most challenge so consider who you give those numbers to.
A lot of the work I do with my GT students is problem solving. (I have shared before my 7 super solving strategies poster, but here it is again if you haven't seen it.) My classes this week have been working on the first box - Choose an Operation. I use a few different resources to find problems (past Math Olympiad, Singapore Math - 70 Must-Know Word Problems, Scholastic's Math Word Problems Made Easy.) My favorite resource is probably "Introduction to Problem Solving Grades 3-5" by Susan O'Connell. This resource has sample problems for each problem solving strategy at different levels. Some can take a whole clas period! If you purchase this resource, it comes with a cd-rom of the activities which makes your teaching life easier (the problems have space to explain their thinking too!) My 5th graders got a problem that wasn't in any of these but was a quick blurb in an old Mailbox magazine. Each group got an index card with a number 1-10 on it. They had to use 3 or 4 4's (AND ONLY 4's) and PEMDAS to find the answer on their index card. To make it easy on you, here is an answer guide (but keep in mind for many there is more than one way to solve it.) 6 and 10 pose probably the most challenge so consider who you give those numbers to. If your students like the 4's challenge, then consider purchasing the game 24. The game has cards at beginning, intermediate, and challenge levels. Every card in the whole box equals 24 by adding, subtracting, multiplying, and/or dividing the 4 numbers pictured. There are other variations on the game too with different boxes (single digits, double digits, fractions, and more.)
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I posted a Mr. C video a couple of weeks ago (PEMDAS) and this week we used another great song from his YouTube channel. Check out this catchy tune about "Mean, Median, Mode." If you want to rock a 5th grader's world, put up on the board 10 to the 0 power and ask them what it equals. Invariably, you'll hear them say 0. Let's face it, that is what my logic says too. While not the most high quality video production, this video explained the pattern that gets you to 10 to the 0 equals 1 in the most logical way I have ever seen. I love music. And when it helps me teach a lesson, I love it even more! My fifth grade GT math class is working on a unit of number sense including exponents, scientific notation, and order of operations. I used these to help kick off lessons in our class this week. LOVE YouTube! Much like a middle school math teacher, I teach three sections of math where kids come to my classroom for instruction. I begin working with kids in 3rd grade who have been identified as gifted. They stay with me for 4th grade and then for 5th grade too. I feel pretty lucky to loop each year and be able to build on successes from the previous years. We are a pretty tight group by 5th grade. Nonetheless, we can always use work on team building skills combined with problem solving and communication. Here are my current favorites that we started this school year with: 5th grade - 5th graders took on the Marshmallow Challenge. Spaghetti, tape, and string are used to build the largest tower that will support a large marshmallow. Thanks to a TED Talk an this website, you have all the info you need to try it. http://marshmallowchallenge.com/Welcome.html 4th grade - I challenged my 4th graders this year to stack cups but only using a rubber band with strings attached. NO touching the cups with your hands. I found this one this summer from another blogger - "Science Gal" http://sciencegal-sciencegal.blogspot.ca/2012/09/setting-expectations-for-group-work.html 3rd grade - And although I have not had a chance to work with my 3rd graders yet this year (it takes us the first couple weeks of school to gather data for 3rd grade identification for GT,) the last two years I have required the kids to work with a partner to "Save Fred" - a gummy worm whose "boat" has capsized with his life preserver under the boat. Check out this link for full instructions.
http://www.anderson.k12.ky.us/Downloads/Save%20Fred2.pdf Found a book I LOVE this week! When working with GT kids, you work with a lot of perfectionists. And trying to convince them that everything they do will not always work out perfectly can be a trick. In my class, I applaud the mistakes and talk to the kids about brain research on making mistakes (and fixing them!) We even have a really silly song I made up when someone makes a mistake and fixes their thinking for all of us to see. So this book was a great way to start the year and reinforce that theme. The little girl and her assistant (her dog) make many attempts to create the "most magnificent thing" - and it doesn't work! And she gets mad and she yells and she breaks things and she does all the things that kids do (and let's face it adults too!) But she doesn't give up and in the end... well read the book and find out how it ends!
A couple of week's ago, I got to spend a day learning from Bertie Kingore author of Rigor and Engagment for the Growing Mind: Strategies that Enable High-Ability Learners to Flourish in all Classrooms. She shared so many great ideas! This is just one of them. Question that is like a mini-game of Jeopardy. The teacher poses the problem, and the students pose the questions. In my 4th grade class this week, that meant kids were creating addition and subtraction with decimal problems to review the concept. (I know we used the SmartBoard in an old-fashioned way but I have limited wall-space in my classroom!) Nonetheless, students had the option of creating an addition or subtraction problem and posting it. Then we swapped sticky notes and students had to check each other's work. The errors that the "checkers" found (there were four of them,) we put on whiteboard and analyzed the problem. Students were then challenged to share ways to fix the error to make it fit our answer. What I love most about this strategy is it was highly engaging, especially because the students had the choice. It didn't take a lot of prep time or class time either (and will take even less next time now that my students see how it works.) I also love that this method is SO adaptable to any subject and almost any topic. It can be done as a hook to get a unit started or as a method for review or as a form of assessment. It can be used for vocabulary words, grammar work, science topics, literature analysis - you name it! Bertie suggested it is a great use of a bulletin board that you want to be purposeful but don't have to change all year - simply put question that at the top with a box for your answer and student numbers in the columns and rows. Use it then daily, weekly, monthly... whatever works for you. Below are just a couple of student work examples from our first day using it. I also included the Word file if you find that useful. I would love to hear your ideas if you try it or adapt it too.
My third grade math students and I have begun to tackle decimals and place value this week. In order to make it fun, we used our math notebooks to create Place Value Street as a visual reminder (thanks to the wonderful teachers I met a couple of summers ago at the Mickelson/ExxonMobil Teachers' Academy that showed me this!): 1. Start with a street sign. Every street needs that! The post is held up by the decimal sign. 2. Houses are built with the family members inside: dad Hundreds, mom Tens, and baby Ones. Weirdly enough the family next door all have the same names! Except their last names are different - Thousands and Millions (or take it further if you want.) 3. There are dogs in the yards between the houses (note the tail on the commas!) 4. Apartments are smaller than houses so we build the decimal apartments (I suppose you could call them townhomes.) The apartments hold single people - Tenths, Hundredths, Thousandths... 5. My students wanted to embellish with cars and street markings. You'll note one of the above made the houses each bigger than the next - I LOVED that idea. The other students put "No dogs allowed" to remember that decimals don't need commas between them. I let them make the street their own with whatever hints/tips they want to use. As added fun for learning place value, somewhere along the way I picked up the hint of "lions and tigers and bears, oh my!" to remember how many numbers before needing a comma when working with large place value (of course, working from right to left with numbers.) Sadly, a lot of my students don't know the context of that so I found a clip on YouTube to reconnect them with the "Wizard of Oz." Might as well make learning fun! Now we'll really get to work on decimal understanding...
To have some fun at Halloween AND review our geometry knowledge, my 4th graders got to invent a geometric monster and create a "wanted" poster. (This is a slightly modified version from my awesome former teaching partner, Joalie Alldredge.) The instructions include point values in case you want to take it for a grade, as well. Download the instructions (for free) for your kids here... http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Geometric-Math-Monster-Instructions-967514 Below are examples of the awesome work my 4th graders created... I wanted to create a graphic and acronym that would force kids to slow down their problem solving for story problems and require them to explicitly show what their problem solving strategy was. In my class, this has been the answer. Students divide their paper into four sections. We generally write (or glue) the problem we are working on at the top of a full sheet of paper. I then came up with the acronym STARR: S - Search for the information within the problem that you must use. Students must recopy only what they need. T - Translate the problem into a chart or numbers or a picture or whatever solving strategy makes sense. We talk about how this box gets messy - and that is GREAT! A - Answer the problem and don't forget to label (no label = a naked number in my class and we have a LOT of fun with that!) RR - Review and Response is the reminder to check your work and the space to write down the steps your brain went through to solve. I prompt the kids with "First I... then I... because..." There is some modeling and explicit teaching that goes into student success with writing their steps. I remind them to make it specific to the problem we are working on. "First I read the problem. Then I solved the problem because the teacher told me to," is not an appropriate response! This is where the kids use my "Seven Solving Strategies" and the "Math Conversation Starters." We work on story problems once a week in each of my 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade classes. My 4th and 5th graders compete in Math Olympiad during the year so this is our time to practice our problem solving to prep for our monthly contests. Students work by themselves first, share with their tables, and then nominate someone from their table to share their approach (and it isn't always the right answer - which makes for interesting conversations!) My story problems come from: Singapore Math's 70 Must Know Word Problems (choose the grade level) http://www.amazon.com/Must-Know-Word-Problems-Grade-Singapore/dp/0768240131/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1384026605&sr=8-5&keywords=singapore+math Scholastic's Math Word Problems Made Easy (choose the grade level) http://www.amazon.com/Math-Word-Problems-Made-Easy/dp/0439529719/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1384026644&sr=8-1-fkmr0&keywords=story+problems+made+eas Want to download this to use (for free) for your classroom? Go to... http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/STARR-Problem-Solving-967608 |
Tracey BeanGifted and Talented Teacher Archives
July 2016
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