Week Summary 10/18-10/22

This week students finished working on their Special Number books and had a chance to share and see how other students designed it in our gallery walk Wednesday.

On Thursday we began our new unit, entitled Bits and Pieces, working with fractions. After a pre-assessment to see what we already know about fractions, we began Investigation #1, looking at how fractions could be used to describe progress in a fundraising thermometer.

On Friday, we saw how we could divide a whole into different sized fractions by making fraction strips. Some students used different methods, from measuring with a rule, like Gabe, although most of the class decided to use folding to divide their strips into 1/2s, 1/3s, 1/4s, 1/5s, 1/6s, 1/8s, 1/9s, 1/10s, and 1/12s. While some strips were easy to create, such as 1/2, others were more challenging, like 1/3 or 1/12. Students began noticing relationships between fractions, such as if they first made the strip into thirds, then they could divide those thirds into fourths to create twelfths.

Fraction strips will be useful tools as we continue going deeper with fractions, looking at equivalent fractions, adding and subtracting fractions by giving us visual models to work from.

This weekend students are finishing their fraction strips for homework.

Finishing Special Number Books Tonight

Today in class students worked to add sections to their special number books to get ready for tomorrows gallery walk. Tonight for HW students are finishing adding all sections to their Special Number books in pencil. Students will have about 20 minutes in class tomorrow for finishing touches (such as adding color or illustrations to their books) before the gallery walk.

10/12-10/15 Week Summary

After working with their partners for 3 days on the Locker Problem, this Wednesday students shared their posters (which showed and explained how they solved the problem) during a gallery walk.

Check out the photos of the Locker Problem process!

http://picasaweb.google.com/marcella.anwandter/TheLockerProblem?authkey=Gv1sRgCLPozdGps4yIxwE&feat=directlink

On Thursday we discussed our new project "The Special Number Project" in which students chose 1 number (greater than 20) that was significant to them to explore and develop into a book. Students we're given a "Menu" for the project, with a choice of appetizers to begin their book with, 6 required entrees (finding the factors, multiples, prime factorization, LCM, GCF and a glossary of key terms), and the option for dessert (such as creating a math riddle), if they chose to take it.

Students began planning their books on a layout page, before receiving their books at the end of class, to work on 2 pages over the weekend.

We will be finishing up our Special Number books in the first half of next week and then begin to prepare for our next journey into the land of fractions!

Locker Problem Reflection

Today students began work with a partner or independently on their locker problem poster, in order to show and explain their thinking throughout the locker problem process.

Tonight students are reflecting on their work over the past week and describing what they are proud of, what challenges they faced and how sharing their thinking with others helped their process.

You can click the link below to access the Locker Problem Reflection:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/10516607/Locker%20Problem%20Reflection%20%20%26%20Rubric.pdf

Locker Problem

This week students began work on a new challenge: "The Locker Problem" which is as follows:

There are 25 lockers in the hallway of middle school. Each August, the custodians add a fresh coat of paint to the lockers and replace any of the broken number plates. The lockers are numbered from 1-25.

When the students arrive the day after Labor Day, they decide to celebrate the start of the school year with a tradition. The first student inside runs down the hall opening all of the lockers. The second student runs down the hall closing every second locker, beginning with locker number 2. The third student reverses the position of ever third locker, beginning with locker number 3. (If the locker is open, she closes it. If it’s closed, she opens it.) The fourth student changes the position of every fourth locker, beginning with number 4.

A) At the end of this ritual, which locker doors are open?

B) Why are the open lockers left open?

C) Which patterns emerged in your work?

Students had the option of working on the medium problem (above), the challenge problem (100 lockers & 100 kids) or the super challenge (1000 lockers and 1000 kids).

On the first day, students worked with partners to understand the scenerio and what the question was asking by making a KNOW, WANT TO KNOW and SPECIAL CONDITIONS table. They then discussed their plans and ideas (without writing, although many students were very eager to jump right in!), before getting some time to work on beginning their plans. Many students, such as Marco and Kailey, decided to begin by drawing pictures of the lockers. Several other students, including Maggie and Josh, Mariah and Evy, chose to organize the sequence by creating a table, showing the lockers and the students, using O to indicate open and C to indicate closed. Other students, including Aden and Nikolas began to notice a pattern about which lockers were open, which helped them the 2nd day move on to the super challenge!

The second day (Thursday) we shared our strategies and also discussed the pros and cons of different approaches (ex. the table was helpful in organizing, but if you made 1 mistake along the way it could throw off your answer. Also, for the 100 locker problem the table would take a long time).

Students continued to work, either independently or with their partner and began to notice certain patterns and have "a-ha" moments throughout Thursday. For homework over the long weekend, students were asked to solve at least the 25 locker problem (or if they had solved that choose a more challenging option). Check out the photo link to the left to see what they've been up to!