Thursday, September 5th, 2019

We come to the end of both the second day of school and the week.  It was a short two days and both were spent on acclimating the students to 5th grade and getting to know each other.  Next week will be a continuation of this as expectations and procedures are taught and reinforced.  

In math, students again were challenged in math with three activities.  

The first activity involved seeing if all numbers can be the sum of consecutive numbers before it.  For example, 6 is the sum of 1+2+3 - all consecutive numbers.  Students drew a hundreds chart first as the came in to start the day and used that for the first two activities.  What we discovered is that the answer is no.  This will not work with 0, 1, 2, and 4.  All other numbers will follow that rule.  Another example:  19.....9+10 are consecutive numbers and add up to a sum of 19.

The second activity also used the hundreds grid.  This one involved choosing any three consecutive horizontal numbers and adding them up.  The task was to choose at random, throughout the grid, and add the three numbers up.  Then, look for a pattern.  This was a challenge since at a first glance there didn't seem to be a pattern.  But, there IS one.  

For example, try adding 42, 43, and 44.  They are three of them, consecutive, and horizontal on the hundreds grid.  Adding them up gives a sum of 129.  Adding up 55, 56, and 57 gives a sum of 168.  One more......18+19+20 = 57.  

As I mentioned before, 129, 168, and 57 don't seem to have any noticeable pattern.  But, when experimenting with different operations, you will find the pattern.  After a lot of hinting, the students discovered that all of the numbers are evenly divisible by 3, or conversely are all multiples of 3 (129/3=43; 57/3=19; 168/3=56).  

The last activity was to take a randomly assigned number and express it creatively and visually.

In social studies, we are still having issues with getting some students' Chromebooks connected to the WIFI.  I did put in a Help Desk ticket so hopefully this will be resolved as soon as possible.  In the meantime, students whose Chromebooks were able to connect shared theirs.  

They explored the social studies content involving the UN sustainability guidelines.

In literacy, we set academic goals, wrote them on Post-It Notes, and attached them to a sheet of chart paper.  Each student shared a goal with the class and then the chart paper was hung on the wall.

The second part involved students filling out an All About Me form so I can get to know them better.

The last part involved doing a main idea and inference practice activity online.  It can be found HERE.