Daily Archives: November 26, 2012

I am Loved (or Happy Birthday, Mrs. Bearden!)

I love how kids celebrate things, especially birthdays. 🙂  Remember the ice cream party from last year?

My birthday was last week, and this is what welcomed me that Thursday morning:

 

Wait–it gets better!  I also got a new hat and some handmade jewelry:

 

Fiona wore some FABULOUS glasses with a sweet message:

 

And my parents even sent me flowers.  Nice, right?

I somehow didn’t get pictures of the cookie treats I brought, nor did I get recordings of the compliments my 5th grade friends shared with me during my “party,” but let me assure you those were great, too!  Thank you friends, for making me feel so special!

Math Warm-Ups Nov. 12-16, 2012

With last week being Thanksgiving, I wasn’t able to get the warm-ups posted for you.  So here they are, but a couple of extra pics of what we’ve been doing with fractions in math lately.  That makes up for it, right? 🙂

 

Tuesday

 

Wednesday

 

Thursday

 

Also this week, though not as Warm-Ups were these charts:

 

The whole focus of this fraction unit we’re in the middle of is that kiddos use equivalents–often fraction/percent equivalents–to solve problems and figure out the fractional part of a group.  It’s a pretty cool way of thinking, and makes so much more sense to many kids than the way I know I learned about fractions.  We’ve also been working on using grids to “see” how much the part is, so that we can find an equivalent or add another part to it.  We might take a 4 x 6 grid, then and break it into eighths, thirds or sixths by just drawing lines like this:

 

It’s pretty magical, actually, how thinking this way has made a once very negative topic make so much more sense to so many kiddos!  Stay turned for more about how we’re tackling fractions in a fun, “real” and authentic way!