Tuesday's Math Lesson

Once again, for Math, the boys and girls are going to work with their elbow partners to find their way to the blog and use this graph below to answer some data-related questions. We've been talking about the parts of a graph and how organization and presentation is key. 

When the boys and girls first viewed the graph below it was missing quite a bit of information and as a result, it was kind of useless. After we "put it back together" we were able to draw many conclusions.  

Boys and girls, here are the questions we need to answer today: 

1. How many more girls want to be a cheese tester than boys?
2. Why do you think more teachers want to be a professional sleeper for a day?
3. How many people altogether voted for puppy player?
4. The data for how many girls voted to be a ninja for a day is missing.  If 22 people voted altogether for ninja, how many are girls?  

Week 19's Text of the Week

This week, as their text of the week, the boys and girls are reading a story about a class election. The story complements a number of cross-curricular items we're learning about in Room 208.  On Monday, I read the story to the kids and we talked about some of the new words and their meaning. We also briefly explored who we'd vote for and why.  On Tuesday, we read the story aloud and then we talked about how important it is to think very critically about who or what we vote for.    

As part of our faith development, we have talked a lot lately about how the way we judge someone is not by their appearance, race, ability or gender, but by their words and deeds, so this is why I've made a point to comment in the story on the overall character of the the two candidates. We'll talk about this again throughout the week as we explore the text on a closer level.  

We've also started our Data Management Unit in Math and part of this includes "graphing in" most days. Students participate in a number of polls and in doing so, learn about voting and how to analyze data. The story complements this Math unit very nicely as we can also talk about the rules and policies that make the election process safe and authentic.  

Getting back to literacy, we're also going to look at this story with some of the items in mind I shared in a blog post from last week:  

• From whose perspective is this story being told?  
• How do I feel about what I'm reading?
• Where do I stand on this topic? 
• Did my thinking change throughout the text?

As always, we'll have our TOTW test on Friday, that will combine a bit of word study along with reading comprehension. 

Friday's Math Lesson

We've started our new Math unit! We're on Unit 5: Data Management and as part of Friday morning's Math lesson on interpreting data, students are going to use the iPads to find their way to this blog post and analyze the data they see on the graph.  

Students will be required to provide information they interpret from the graph and then answer the following discussion questions:  

1. How many teachers chose bacon-flavored gum?
2. What is the scale of this graph? 
3. How can you determine how many people were interviewed?  
4. How many more boys votes did Nacho-Cheese need to be tied with Strawberry? 

Valentine Fun!

Down below, you'll find a video I made a few years ago to explain a special Valentine activity I like to do with my class this time of year. I found the idea on Pinterest. In the past, it has been very successful so I like to start it nice and early.  

We'll get this rolling this week and I hope it'll be another hit! So while the video is a few years old, the message is still the same: it's all about spreading kindness and positivity!