MEASURING OUR GARDEN PLOTS!

When you get outside, it's amazing how much can be learnt from one activity! Here's what we thought....

Hands on Measurement in Maths on PhotoPeach

Marvellous Maths Strategy for Problem Solving.

Maths Problem-Solving Strategy #1: Draw a Diagram

Hannah A: It's easier to look for patterns in the numbers-you don't always have to add everything.

Rosie: It causes you to be organised.

Miles: You can combine the strategy with other ones such as trial and error.

Lucas: you draw what you visualise.

Caitlin: you don't need words!

Annie: key words, when reading, are still important.

Sophie: you need to put the numbers (labels) on your diagrams.

MATHS REFLECTIONS

This week our learning in reading has been,"How to read worded Maths questions." Here is what we are thinking so far...

Declan: use the diagrams to help your understanding

Rosie: find key words about what the question is asking

Caitlin: the key words lead us to answer correctly

Hannah B: check the text and the diagrams before trying to answer the question

Jordi: if the question is tricky, eleminate the obvious non-answers

Can you help us with some more?

EXPERT GROUPS TEACHING MATHS

A wonderful aspect of fourth term is seeing a year of learning come to fruition. So it was when the senior classes recently

researched  aspects of geometry in expert groups. Over three to four days, the students presented their learning while their peers took notes and gave feedback. Here's the student feedback! Great to see the pros dominate!

Expert Groups for Maths

Pros	Cons
Show what we can do ourselves	Diverse learning levels
More fun to design own learning	Some explanations from presenters mightn’t be clear
Fun and learning at the same time	Not always equal contributions of the team
Learning at own rate
makes us more independent
Get to see how others work
Variety of topics
Enjoy doing own research and teaching others
Everyone gets a turn compared to normal class
Worked with different people

MAKING OUR OWN MOVIES ABOUT MATHS HELPS US TO LEARN MATHS!

We were learning about decimals, how to multiply and divide them.  We created videos to show others how to perform these operations.  Before filming, we needed to revise the maths, write scripts, prepare our props and rehearse.  It took lots of teamwork and really made us think about the maths and how to clearly explain the process. We noticed some mistakes when re-viewing the movies...does this matter?

REACTIONS TO LEARNING THIS WAY!

Akon: It was a really hands-on way of learning - different and creative.
Amber: We were able to critique the movies and to see for ourselves where we made mistakes.
Simon: Because it was a fun thing to do, I think I will remember it better.
Tristian: It was a creative way to learn, a different way of sharing our maths.
Norhan: There were two purposes to this - having fun and learning Maths as well.
Lizzy: Watching the movies again was useful for revision.
Rylee: It was an easy way to learn from our mistakes...better than lots of teacher talk.

Hands on learning- ratio and cordial!

Today we experimented with cordial to learn about ratio and how we can use ratio in real life situations We learnt how to write ratios normally, as a fraction part and a whole. Here is some examples:
 
Ratio                 Fraction Part                  Fraction whole
1:2                    1/2                                  1/3
1:4                    1/4                                  1/5
 
Tristian and Ivan

I liked this learning activity because it was hands on and easy to remember because it was a fun activity and everyone enjoyed it . We learn well this way.

Daniel and Georgia

I think that learning in a fun way is a great way to get something stuck in your brain because you remember the fun experience. Now I know that when I have cordial never to put in 3 parts of cordial and 1 part water, yuck - Amber.

 

 

LEARNING INTENTIONS IN MATHS-POSTED BY AMBER

This term we have been using learning intentions. Learning intentions are statements that help guide us throughout the lesson. If we were focusing on multiplying double digits, the learning intention might be, "We are learning to multiply double digits and apply them in a mental and visual way." We use the learning intentions in many things, especially maths. The learning intentions help all of us to know what we are focusing on and keep us on track. At the end of the lesson we go back to the learning intention to see if we have achieved what we were hoping to. I personally think that learning intentions help me to stay an track and to raise the bar.

Learning Intentions from Marg Yore on Vimeo.

STUDENTS TEACH!

Handing over to students as teachers is a powerful classroom experience! Yesterday, one each of our Grade 5 and 6 students taught their peers the problem solving strategy of "Creating a Tree Diagram." Enjoy the reactions of the other students and of our teachers as well!

Teaching our Peers! from Marg Yore on Vimeo.

HANDS ON MATHS-MAKING MOCKTAILS!

Thanks to a great post on Bearwood blog in the UK (last year), we also experienced the meaning of RATIO in real life by making mocktails in Maths!!! It's great to be able to share ideas across the world!

Maths Mocktails from Marg Yore on Vimeo.

HOW AVERAGE ARE YOU?

We are learning about the MODE, MEDIAN and MEAN of a set of numbers! Firstly, we collected data on how many push ups each student could do in 30 seconds. There was a wide range  of scores! From the scores, we calculated the mode, median and mean...but, we would like to hear of some more situations that would help us practise our calculations.

                      Now it's your turn to help us!

Challenge our math-a-magical class with some great ideas to see how average we can really be!!! What scenarios could we use to practise our skills?

Our definitions:
mode: in a set of scores the mode is the score that occurs the most
median:a type of average-the middle value of an ordered set of values
mean:average of a number of different amounts

FERMI PROBLEMS

Fermi Problems-Enrico Fermi studied physics and Maths. He liked to pose seemingly impossible questions. “Fermi Problems” celebrate his ability to estimate and play around with problem-solving! NOW...see if you can think like Fermi...help us learn like Fermi by posing a Fermi Problem for our Mathematically crazy class!!! An example we used today was, "How many cans of dog-food do our neighbourhood dogs consume in one night?" Another Fermi Problem I remember is my uncle asking my dairy farmer Dad how many milk shakes his cows could provide in one year!

DECIMAL DOINGS!!!

In real life situations at school, we've discovered that decimals are used for money and for recording race times -we timed ourselves with stop watches and read our "decimal" race times!

Now can you help us please? In what real life situations have you used decimals? How else can we work with decimals at school?