Week of October 6-10

This week, the 5th graders learned three strategies to finding all possible outcomes of a given situation: creating an organized/systematic list, making a tree diagram, or using multiplication.  What seemed like a simple lesson became difficult when this question was posed:
What is the probability that if you guess on three true/false questions, you will get them all right?
Students were encouraged to use a tree diagram to solve this problem.  Next week, we will discuss our solutions.

HW: p. 27 and 29


In 4th grade, we learned how us use the cover-up method to solve equations.

Step 1: Cover up the variable expression (2N) and replace it with the word "what."  Ask, "What plus 7 equals 15?"  The answer is 8, so draw an arrow and write 8 underneath the variable expression.

Step 2: Write a new equation to show the value of the variable expression: 2N = 8

Step 3: Cover up the N and ask, "Two times what equals 8?"  The answer is 4, so draw an arrow and write 4 under the variable.

Step 4: Write a new equation to show that N = 4.

Step 5: Check your answer by plugging it back into the original equation.

HW: p. 23 and 25


Our 3rd graders learned the importance of standardizing units of measure this week.  Julia's uncle bought her a dog and asked her to make a pen that was 20 of his footsteps by 8 footsteps.  She did what he asked using her footsteps, and when the dog arrived, she found that the pen was too small.  We realized that her feet were much smaller than her uncle's feet, so her pen was too small.  The students had some wonderful ideas about how to solve the problem: have her uncle come over and use his feet, have another adult male use his footsteps, or use a ruler to measure the uncle's foot and use those measurements to create the pen.  This led us to the realization that in order to be accurate, we need standard units of measure.  We also learned what perimeter is and how to calculate it.


HW: p. 25 and 29 (and p. 27 if you didn't complete it in class)