Week of September 19-23

This week, the 3rd graders learned about the importance of standardized units of measure after realizing that using our feet to measure out a pen for a dog would give us all different sized pens. We also learned that perimeter is the distance around the edge of a shape. We used an organized list to find all the possible pens with a perimeter of 56 feet. I was so impressed with the different strategies students used to find different pens with a perimeter of 56 feet!

Students use their feet to measure a 20 ft by 8 ft pen.

In 4th grade, we kicked off our probability unit by discussing what it means for events to be "equally likely" and that the probability of these events does not always equal one half. It depends on how many events there are. For example, when there were 8 colored cubes (one of each color) in a bag, the probability of picking any one color equals one eighth. We also learned that the experimental probability is found after conducting an experiment. It is the number of times an event occurs over the number of total trials conducted. For more info on experimental probability, or for an extra challenge, visit our 4th grade page!

Students record data while playing probability games with a deck of cards and a bag of colored cubes.

In 5th grade, we learned how to use circles of evaluation to write code, and we saw how order of operations is related to coding. We also discussed the importance of using error messages (or what we like to call "clues") to help us figure out our mistakes when writing code. Watch the video below for a review of how to turn circles of evaluation into code. For more practice, go to the 5th grade page.