Week of September 25-29

This week, some 3rd graders took on the role of restaurant owner and are using all kinds of math to figure out how much it will cost to make each dish and how much to charge customers in order to make a profit. We are also learning about fractions and measurements, like how many liquid ounces are in a cup, how many ounces are in a pound, how to calculate the cost of 3/4 sugar if we only know the price of a whole cup, and much more! Other students became dog walkers and are using google maps and elapsed time skills to plan out the schedule of when the dogs will be picked up and dropped off. They are also thinking about how much to charge each dog owner in order to make it worth their while. The students are realizing how much math goes into careers that might seem totally unrelated to math!

These students are planning out the meals for their restaurant!

In 4th grade, we've been learning about equally likely events by conducting experiments like flipping a coin or picking a colored cube out of a bag. When tossing a coin, the probability of getting heads or tails is 1/2, but we realized that not all events that are equally likely have a 50-50 chance of happening. If there are 8 different colored cubes in a bag, each chip has a 1/8 chance of being selected. The students came to realize that equally likely events have the same chance or probability of occuring, not necessarily a 50-50 chance!

These students are finding the experimental probability of choosing each of the eight colored cubes in the bag.

The 5th graders are becoming computer programmers and have already started writing code to evaluate mathematical expressions and to produce images. After learning how to write code to produce a star, students were able to figure out on their own how to create many other shapes like triangles, circles, squares, ellipses, right triangles, and many more! This led to a lot of meaningful discussions about how the coordinates of the screen can help us size our images and what the numbers we are using actually mean. The students discovered that the rectangle's numbers represent the lenght on the x and y axis and the circle's number represents the radius.

Students are writing code to produce various shapes.

Week of September 18-20

This week, our 3rd graders began to explore how math is used in many different careers. We realized that when teachers are deciding how to arrange the desks in groups, they are using division! When travel agents are planning a vacation for someone, they have to use math to make a budget, book flights, hotels, and much more! Math is used in some way in almost every career. I encouraged the students to go home and ask an adult how he/she uses math at work. I can't wait to hear all about it next week!

In 4th grade, we kicked off our probability unit by discussing the likelihood of various events ocurring. This led to some great debates, especially when asked how likely it is that a meteorologist will correctly predict the weather or how likely it is that someone else at Menlo will have the same birthday as yours! We left off thinking about which comes up more often, heads or tails. Next week, we will use experimental probability to better answer this question.

The 5th graders learned a new way to indicate the order of operations in an expression - a diagram called a circle of evaluation. Circles of Evaluation show the structure that’s going on inside an expression. All Circles of Evaluation have two rules:
Circle Rule 1: Each circle must have one function, which goes at the top of the circle.
Circle Rule 2: The numbers are written below, in order from left to right.

This circle means: 351 / (4 - 5)
Next, we will learn how to convert that to code and begin programming!

Week of September 11-15

Welcome to G&T 2017-18!!! This year will be filled with enriching and challenging adventures in Math, Engineering, and English Language Arts. G&T is a place where we can take risks, learn from both our successes and failures, ask lots of questions, persevere when faced with challenges, and, most importantly, have fun! For those of you who are new to the program, check out the videos below to get a feel for what this program is all about.

Click here for your first assignment!

During our first week of classes, all grades participated in a Dr. Suess themed Breakout EDU session. This is kind of like an escape room where students have to work together as a team to solve a variety of puzzles to open the locks on the breakout box. It took a lot of creativity, communication, and collaboration, but eventually all classes cracked the codes!!! I was so impressed with the teamwork and grit ALL students demonstrated! Check out some pics and video below.