AREA!

Today was all about Area... squares and rectangles!  We talked about how to find the area by counting on a grid, as well as the short-cut: multiplying the length and the width.

They have a worksheet for homework this evening... one side is perimeter and the other is area.  They should follow all the instructions!

See the pictures today...

Intro to Area

To find the area...

Area of a rectangle

Area of a square

Using Square Units

HW

Perimeter of square

Perimeter of a rectangle

Perimeter of a triangle

What's the side?

Quiz Day

We took our quiz today!

Overall, a job well done.  Some kids will want to make corrections (actually, if they did miss some I want them to figure out who is who...)... and others are going to need to have a retake.  Check with your child.

Tomorrow its back to perimeter!

Perimeter example

Notes on Perimeter from last Thursday

The Mathematician Quiz and The Final Exam

I've gotten multiple emails/questions from parents about both the mathematician quiz that will be tomorrow (Monday, April 28) and the Math 5 Final Exam (Tuesday-Wednesday, May 13-14).  I decided to email a response to everyone as well as post this on our blog. (http://mathfive.blogspot.com)

The main event tomorrow in class will be a quiz on the 15 or so mathematicians that we have read stories about every Monday since around January.  On Mondays, we begin by taking some brief notes on the mathematician, talk about when they were born/passed away, and in general try to get a scope of their life and influence.  These notes are found in the back of their composition notebooks.  Afterwards, we read a story from the book Mathematicians Are People, Too.  About a week ago, the whole class and myself generated a list of important things to remember about each of the mathematicians -- and each student received a copy (and I'll post it below as well).  If your children or you are wondering what to use when studying, this is the place to start.  Otherwise, looking over the notes in the back of their notebooks wouldn't be a bad idea.  Focus on what makes each mathematician different -- there are lots of Greeks, so don't focus on their nationalities necessarily.  This quiz is meant to be a little stressful, but not overly so.  The world most certainly will not end if they don't do so well.  In fact, if they don't do as well as they'd like, they can always take another swing at it.  It will be a matching quiz and there will be a bank of names.  No sweat.

On Tuesday and Wednesday, May 13 and 14, your children will take a cumulative Math 5 Exam that will cover and evaluate all the skills that we have worked/touched on in Math 5 this year.  Now, the first thing to help you shift your focus when I say the word "exam" is to realize that I'm not talking about a make-it-or-break-it-exam.  This isn't college, they can't get an "F," they can't "fail" it.  I use a variety of methods to assess and evaluate your children's learning and have been doing so throughout the year.  I watch them work out problems, work in groups, work together, interact with each other.  From time to time I collect homework and classwork to check understanding.  I get to work individually with them on warm-ups and questions they have when we are practicing a skill in class.  And I use tests at the end of units as just another layer to help me continually try to grasp where their heads are at.  This Final Exam is just another layer.  I take all of these layers to help me finalize their end of year skills assessment.  (More on that below)

The worst that could happen is they just utterly flop on the exam.  But what is important to remember is that this is just one piece of all of the information I have about your children and math.  When I look over their exams, I compare what they've shown me there with what I know about them from their classwork, earlier tests, etc.  A typical scenario looks like this: (I'll use my own name) Matthew didn't do so hot on the subtracting decimals section of the final exam.  I remember him having trouble with that a few weeks ago during our warm-up, in fact I'm not sure if he ever nailed that one.  I check his test from his file and see that he got most of the problems right on his decimals test, but in my notes to him I told him I wanted him to keep practicing those subtracting decimals.  So, come report time, I know I'm going to be recommending some touch-up work on subtracting decimals, specifically over the summer.

On the flip side, I have had children blow their Final Exam out of the water!  I mean, nail it!  And we talk about the skills assessment and, wow!  Look at all those "Got it's!"  Fast forward to the fall, the kids are getting back into the swing of things in Math 6 and then they start the fractions unit and poof!  You want me to add those fractions?!  I don't remember how!  Skills, learning, and knowledge are fluid and dynamic.  If they are used, they stick around in the brain.  If they aren't, they don't exactly go away... but they are harder to access.  Which, you may have been wondering, is why every math class in the middle school has recurring units on fractions and decimals.

I say all of this to help you understand these next few days and weeks as we close out the year in Math 5.  I also want to apologize for any confusion and lack of clarity on my part--I've made a note to myself that come next year this time I'll make sure I'm clear about what these big pieces are all about.

Thank you for your support and have a great Sunday!  Light & love--matthew

Brief notes on the Mathematicians

Thales – proportion (measuring the pyramid with shadow), 7 Wise Men, 1^st Greek Philosopher & Scientist

 

Pythagoras – Symbol: Pentagram (star), Pythagorean Theorem, Music Theory

 

Archimedes – Pi, invented catapult and Archimedes' water screw, ancient, greatest mathematician of ancient times

 

Hypatia – first female mathematician, Greek

 

John Napier – Scottish nobleman, Napier Rods, invented logarithms, medical aide, spherical trigonometry

 

Galileo Galilei – Italian astronomer, advanced telescope, pendulum, scientific method dude

 

Blaise Pascal – Pascal's triangle, first calculator

 

Sir Isaac Newton – Englishmen, Calculus, light and color discoveries, gravity laws

Leonard Euler – Blind, mathematical notation, Swiss mathematician

 

Joseph Louis LaGrange – number theory, calculus, metric system, two schools, teacher

 

Sophie Germain – number theory, prize for elastic surfaces, taught in secret by LaGrange (1776-1831)

 

Carl Friedrich Gauss – predicted orbit of asteroid Ceres, greatest 19^th century German mathematician

 

Evariste Galois – algebra, number and group theories, French, only 21 when died, killed in duel

 

Emmy Noether – vitally affected modern algebra, German mathematician, worked with Einstein

Srinivasa Ramanujun – Indian Mathematician, little or no training but still made huge discoveries

Can u c?

Warm up

Can you see?

HW

HW

Today was our final mathematician!  See below for the notes we took on Srinivasa Ramanujan.

Heads up -- next Monday will be our mathematician test... a test on ALL of the mathematicians we've read about this year.

Homework is to figure out what their notes are going to be for Ramanujan.

HW

Srinivasa Ramanujun

Upcoming Exam Days

Heads up posting--

All of my morning math classes take an end-of-year, cumulative final
exams. I wanted to go ahead and let you know those dates: May 13 &
14. Believe it or not, it really does take two days to complete the
exam. :)

And of course, the week prior to those days will be spent in review.
The kids will find this out this coming week.

Have a great weekend!

Angles and more angles!

Today was about measuring and estimating the measure of angles.  We've been in our study of geometry for about 2 weeks now, have discussed rays, angles, lines, line segments, and parallel and perpendicular lines.  The past few days have been about angles.

We're using protractors to measure our angles and the kids worked on quite a few today during class.  We'll focus our time next week on recognizing other geometric figures as well as switch over to perimeter and area of basic shapes (square, rectangle, etc.).

I'm back!

What a day!

Today I shared with the kids some of the things I learned yesterday at my professional development day in Raleigh. Be on the lookout for more information about that soon in another post. :)

The only thing we got to do today was me taking up the homework (the protractor homework)!  Ha!  So, some kiddos went to study hall to finish that up today and I'll be emailing those parents this afternoon.  Onward tomorrow!

Making flashcards

Amalie Emmy Noether

List 1

List 2, HW

Warm up

Math Appeal

Flowery Attire

Classwork

Notes on measuring angles

Examples

More examples

Measuring Angles

Today we started looking at measuring angles using a protractor.  Tomorrow the gets will get deeper into it.  No homework!

All about lines

Today was all about lines... lines, line segments, parallel, and perpendicular.  Sounds like a spell of some sort!

We ended the period with a drawing challenge--draw me a picture (completely labeled!) with a ray, an obtuse angle, parallel lines, and perpendicular line segments.

We're in the heart of geometry!  No homework.

Lines

Parallel lines

Perpendicular lines

Draw me a picture...

Evariste Galois

Geometry and rays

Angles

Right, acute, and obtuse

Geometry with our bodies!

Today we talking about area and perimeter and really solidified what those two words mean with our bodies.  :)  Ask your kids!

We also shared our shapes which will be posted in my room tomorrow.

No homework!

The beginning of Geometry

Today I took up the Test Corrections, we did a "Math Path" for a warm-up (which was a great success!), and then did an activity where we generated ideas about Geometry (see the picture below with all those post-its on the board).

Tonight's homework is to draw a picture of your favorite shape, and add character. :)

Geometry brainstorming with post-its

HW!

Finalizing Our Last Unit

Today we finalized our Word Problem and Fraction/Decimal/Percent unit by completing a reflection on the unit as well as by getting our tests back!

All tests will be coming home today with corrections needed -- and these are due tomorrow.

Our next unit?  GEOMETRY.  The fun begins tomorrow at 10:35a!

HW