Common Core Info

The term Common Core State Standards has been very popular in Manchester lately, especially with teachers. The Common Core State Standards provide a consistent, clear understanding of what students are expected to learn, so teachers and parents know what they need to do to help them. The standards are designed to be robust and relevant to the real world, reflecting the knowledge and skills that our young people need for success in college and careers. 

Here is what the students need to know in September for math. These are the standards written as "I Can" statements that are student and parent friendly so we can all work together. 

Math:

I can identify the place value of numbers.

Ican write numerals in standard and expanded form.

I can use place value to round multi-digit numbers.

I can change measurement units within a system.

I can use measurement information in various situations.

I can compare two multi-digit numbers using symbols to show comparisons.

I can solve word problem or equations using whole numbers.

Language Arts: 

Coming Soon!

Practice Makes Perfect

Next Friday students have a test on the seven continents and five oceans. Yes, FIVE oceans! The Southern Ocean which borders Antarctica has been added since most of us learned this basic lesson when we were in school. Here  are a couple of links to games students can play to help them practice.

Are you a beginner, intermediate or expert? There's also a tutorial to watch.

Oceans & Continents

Matching Oceans & Continents 

Practice those Skills

We have been working on place value in math. Students need to know up to the millions place.

We have not done anything to the right of the decimal point yet. So to really know the values, here are a few games to practice. Click on the links below to play! 

Place Value Fruit Shoot

Matching Math Place Value

Order Numbers Up to A Million

Ways to Say A Number

Compare Numbers Up to A Million

Look for some rounding games later this week. We are rounding numbers up to a million!

Off To An Amazing Start

We've only had three days of school so far, but I can already tell that this will be a great class! We started out with some basic team building and cooperative activities so that we could get to know one another. 

Our first activity was called "Save Fred." The students learned the scientific method by doing an activity in which they had to get a gummy life saver, on to a gummy worm, which was on top of a cup (which was also Fred's boat). So that sounds simple, but the students could only use a four paper clips. No hands! They had to develop a hypothesis and a procedure. It was a lot of fun to see them working together as they problem solved and got to know one another. 

Below is a slideshow from our Save Fred experiment and the puzzles we put together on the first day!

DONORS CHOOSE GRANT

Click here to see the listing on Donors Choose

This Is It!

Happy Summer Vacation! Thanks to all nineteen kiddos, and all their families for one of the best school years ever!

My Favorite Lesson This Year

We created bubble wands (see previous post-Engineering In Elementary), and tested them yesterday. We had so much fun designing them... the kids were so creative! It was even more fun to test them. Some had to remodel their orignal design and others worked beautifully! Anybody have a 3D printer? We could patten some of these designs!

Hayley and Summer had the best smaller bubble wand designs. Their wands blew spherical three foot bubbles.  Madison's and Paige's bubble wands were unique designs that made longer bubbles that were about five feet. 

After testing, the kids gathered data and found the maximum, minimum, mean, median, mode, and range (common core vocabulary for grade 4 & 5). We took it a step farther and talked about circumference, diameter, and radius.  We even found the estimated area of a bubble. This was a great end of the year project. I will miss this class because they have really shown that they can have a whole lot of fun while learning! Here is the pictures of our HUGE bubbles! 

Click on the picture below to go to the album.

Engineering In Elementary

Engineering in Elementary

Here is a challenge that you all can begin this weekend since it's going to rain, rain, rain! Design your own bubble wand! You can start it at home by gathering supplies like pipe cleaners, wire coat hangers, string, things from your recycling bin, etc. 

We are going to do some bubble math, bubble science, and bubble contests! What will your wand win?

Here are some examples. But make it whatever YOU imagine! Engineering is most fun when you try to do something you think is impossible. I'll tell you more Monday!

 

Have fun and DFTBA!

Play, Play, Play!

If you must play on Math Playground, play the games below because they are aligned to the Common Core, which means that you have to know the skills involved in each game by the end of fourth grade!

Math Playground & The Common Core

Game On

Science Gamers Click Here!

Galileo---BLABBERIZED

UPDATE: Here is the link to the rest of the classes Blabberized Galileo projects.
http://blabberize.com/mystuff



This week our featured scientist was Galileo. We started out thinking that he invented the telescope... then as the students researched they found out that was not exactly the case. We learned he was the first person to use the telescope to study space, and that he was kind of a rude person! 

After we researched, students had to photo shop a picture of Galileo, and write a script in the first person.  We used blabberize.com to present what we learned about this famous astronomer.