December 2009
2 posts
2009 Edublog Awards →
Our nominations for Edublog Awards for 2009 are…
Best individual blog: Educating Alice at http://medinger.wordpress.com/ Best individual tweeter: EmilySchoolsYou Best group blog: Breakthrough Learning Best new blog: An Educated Choice at www.aneducatedchoice.com Best resource sharing blog: JacketFlap! Best teacher blog: Educating Alice at http://medinger.wordpress.com/ Best librarian...
Quiz time!
My amazing fourth grade math students took a quiz this past Monday so that we could do a check-in on their two- and three-digit multiplication skills. They had four multiplication problems to work along with two very involved multiple-step word problems. I was extremely impressed by their work on the multiplication problems. They have the technique down! My biggest advice for them going forward is...
November 2009
3 posts
KenKen
I hope everyone had a wonderful day. If you need something to keep you busy, check out http://www.kenken.com for more of the fun logic/sudoku/arithmetic puzzles like the ones we worked on in class today. And don’t forget to practice those math facts for our timed tests! I’ll see you all on Monday!
It's Time for Times!
The next unit of study for our math group will be multiplication of larger numbers. In order for the students to get the most out of this unit, they must have their multiplication facts down pat.
To help motivate the students to get a firm grasp on their facts, we will begin doing Fast and Speedy Math Facts - timed tests of their multiplication facts. The goal is for them to have automatic recall...
October 2009
4 posts
Whole group math for November 6
I shared with the students in our class today that next Friday, November 6, I will be out of town so they will have math class with the rest of their fourth grade cohort on that day.
Webby Fun
We used laptop computers in math class today to check out a couple of websites. The first is a site called Quia, which allows me to create activities with custom content based upon what we’re studying. The URL is http://www.quia.com/mathrocks. To get a feel for the site, I’ve created two activities for the students to try - one is based upon the Battleship game while the other is good...
iXL - Web-based math practice →
iXL has web-based math activities that let you practice working with concepts at different grade levels through the fifth grade level. (Remember: You received your username and password in math class today and have them written in your math notebook.)
Bertie Botts Every Flavor Fiasco
Are you ready for a logic problem - just for fun? See if you can use the clues below to figure it out!
Harry and his friends decide to share the last of a packet of Bertie Bott’s Every Flavor beans and each person got one bean. None were impressed with the flavor of their bean, so they decided to show off their skills by casting different spells on them. Who cast what spell on which...
Can You Say Really Big Numbers? →
We learned about some astronomically big numbers today - numbers that ancient Hindu mathematicians used to think about. Check out this web site and learn how to say really, really, really big numbers. (I just learned how to say a number that is approximately eight septendecillion places long. That means it’s an 8 with 54 zeros behind it!)
September 2009
11 posts
HowStuffWorks Video "What the Ancients Knew:... →
From The Science Channel’s series, “What the Ancients Knew,” comes this short video about the origin of zero. (The video is one minute and 46 seconds long. I said it was short!)
“That was like math recess!”
– Aubree, commenting on our first class together
Wow, did we enjoy our first math meeting today. Since this was our first class, we spent a bit of time on logistics such as:
Making sure our pencils were sharpened BEFORE we left the fourth grade classroom because Tammy burned up the motor in the...
WatchBBC Video: The Story of One
After 40 years spent making a career from the completely different, Monty Python star Terry Jones has gone back to basics.
The writer and historian, best known for his work with the surreal comedy troupe, presents The Story of 1, a one-off BBC One documentary on the history of numbers in which he merges slapstick, quirky humour and learning.
This is a great video...
Beats & Breaths Calculator : Discovery Health →
How many heartbeats and breaths have you experienced since you were born?
The MegaPenny Project →
Have you ever wondered what a billion - or even a trillion - pennies looks like? Click on the link above to go to The MegaPenny Project and find out!
How much would you like to be paid?
I hope everyone is thinking about the challenge that I presented at our first meeting last week. As a reminder, here it is:
You have been hired to perform a job that lasts for 30 days, and you get to decide how much you would like to be paid by selecting one of the following two options:
You will be given a check for $1,000 as the complete payment for 30 days of work.
You will be given $.01...
3 tags
WatchWhen we begin studying place value, we’ll “officially” explore numbers through the millions. But why stop there? How far should we go? Just imagine the number one with a hundred zeroes behind it. Did you know that would be called a googol? And then if you have a one with a googol zeroes behind it, it’s a googolplex?
Don’t confuse a googolplex with the Googleplex,...
Fourth Grade Math Totally Rocks
Fourth grade math totally rocks and to prove it a group of students and a sponsoring faculty member meet for thirty minutes every Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday to explore the world of mathematics together, taking learning and conceptual understanding to new levels.
At our first meeting together we will jump into place value. We’ll move from there to addition and subtraction with...
December 2008
2 posts
Exciting first meeting!
Hi Everyone,
I really enjoyed meeting everyone today - parents and kids! We’re going to have a great time exploring math together.
Just so you know… I’m still working on setting up this blog, so the “About” and “Home” links (on the little yellow Post-It note type icons above) don’t link to the correct information yet. Interestingly enough, they...
