Mrs. Spence’s Class

I can hardly believe that this is the last day of January! Take a look at our January calendar and all that we’ve learned this month.

We learned the attributes of shapes like trapezoids, rhombuses, squares, and rectangles. We also categorized the shapes as quadrilaterals and/or parallelograms. Looking at the patterns, we discovered that that the blue rhombuses were even and composite; the orange squares were square numbers; the yellow rectangles were multiples of 3; the red trapezoids were prime and odd.

We measured our heights and used those measurements to find the median, mode, and range of a set of numbers.

Using post-it’s, we’re keeping track of the days in school. We’re going to celebrate on day 100 and we’re almost there!

Today was day 95; we’re using the day to write in decimal form (0.95), a percentage (95%), and as a fraction (95/100).

Finally, using play money, we’re continuing our subtraction of 1000 x the date.

I wonder what the February calendar will look like and what skills we’ll be learning? I can’t wait!

To help remember these three vocabulary words, we have learned to “act” them out.

“Median is the middle number when you put the numbers in order from least to greatest.”

“Mode is the number used most frequently.”

“Range is the difference between the highest and the lowest number.”

Try this:

Find the median, mode, and range for the following numbers.

35, 42, 50, 38, 35, 40, 53

Post your answers!

It’s not just a title for a song, it’s my philosophy!

I truly believe that we can all learn from each other. Explaining something to someone else or hearing information again from a different person is a great way to learn. Sometimes it’s just neat to work out a tough problem with a friend.

That’s the way our classroom works - we help each other learn! Just look at these smiles…look at the teamwork! What a great group of students!

Today we used our feet and our heads! We used one foot, traced it, and then tried to find the perimeter. We had a hard time using a ruler because our foot had curves and our ruler was straight and not very bendable. So we used our heads to come up with another tool that would help us. We decided to use a string! We placed it around the perimeter of our foot and then stretched it out on a ruler. Success! At first we used a customary ruler to find the inches. To make the lesson even more interesting, we recorded our entire group’s measurements. From this data we found the group’s median, mode, and range scores. After finding our perimeter in inches, we used a metric ruler and measured again in centimeters. Again we used the group’s information and found the median, mode, and range. Some students discovered that when using centimeters (cm), their numbers were much larger than when using inches. Why? Leave a response and tell me what you’re thinking!

This week I have a lot of things planned - still focusing on geometry. We’ll review tessellations and complete our January Calendar. I also have a few video clips that show how geometry is used in real life - especially with architects. We’ll progress with two new topics: perimeter and area. I think you’ll like what I’ve got planned! See you Monday!

It’s finally here - our Soc Hop! Girls and boys have been waiting for this day just to wear those neat “50’s” costumes. We finished our math lesson just in time to snap this shot. Looks like they’re ready to “Rock Around the Clock”!

Did you know that nets were not just for fishing?

We’re using 2D nets to make 3D shapes. By studying the nets, we can predict what our solid figure will be, count faces, and describe basic 2D shapes used to make the 3D finished product. With the solid figure complete, we can name it’s attributes: edges, faces, vertices. We can also decide if it’s a prism or pyramid.

We can hardly wait to go the computer lab. Mrs. Schatzke has the NEATEST activities for us. We’re learning to write blogs and post comments, use Photo Story, and even learning to speak Spanish! Each week is a new adventure…I wonder what we’re going to learn next week! By the way, have you watched our Friday morning announcements? They’re so informative! My favorite part is seeing my friends on TV and all the music!

Calendar Math is not just for primary grades, 5th graders use it too and can learn a lot! This all started in September. From the basic calendar we learned about patterns, even and odd numbers, shape attributes, and multiples. Using the Daily Decimal, we kept track of the days of school and renamed decimals as fractions and percentages. With play money, we kept a “wallet” of money and subtracted the date times 1000. (Subtracting with all those zero’s can be a bit tricky!) We started with $1,000,000 and are gradually emptying all our money! Hm… I wonder how long it will take before it’s all gone? Finally, at the end of the month we tracked the probability of drawing colored shapes from a bag. We predicted green would have the most and from our investigation we were correct…see our graph?

Today we read a book, A Cloak for the Dreamer by Aileen Friedman. After reading this amazing book we decided to take our lessons a step farther. We’ve combined our basic geometric shapes to make tessellations. Look at the creative designs that were made today!