Cerrito Creek

In the sleepy first moments after Thanksgiving break, students wrote poetry about fog. It's present and tangible, and it deserves poetry. They shared tales in our morning meeting of sledding, canoe trips, and mushroom finds. I handed fifth graders a giant blank grid in math class, and tasked them with not only determining the total number of square units (10,000), but also with labeling the grid so tomorrow they will be able to efficiently find any number I give them between one and 10,000. It is the first activity in our unit on large numbers, which includes reading and writing large numbers, addition and subtraction of large numbers, estimation, etc. Look for a permission slip in your child's bag tonight with two sides that need to be signed–one for Duxbury Reef on Friday and one for the Marine Mammal Center on Monday. I still could use one more driver for Monday.

The 10,000s chart

One way to partition the chart

Friends sometimes choose to read a book at the same in order to set up a correspondence around literature. 

Homework:

Math: 

Fifth grade math

 worksheet in packet labeled Monday hw(which is actually the third page in the packet) - download part 1, part 2

Parent Letter for Unit 3 

Fourth grade math
Both groups took a short assessment today on subtraction, as we will be working on reviewing subtraction skills with students who need it this week.  In the purple group, today's question was:  How can we compare and make conclusions based on data?  Fourth graders put the finishing touches on the graphs comparing two different groups, and completed pages 20-21 making conclusions about their data.

Fourth grade math homework, due tomorrow
Purple group:  
1.  Finish Unit 2, pages 20-21 (download here) if you did not finish in class.
2.  Complete Unit 2, pages 23-24 (download here), using factor rainbows to find all the factors.

In the blue group the 4^th graders practiced skip counting as a group by 2’s, 3’s, 5’s and 100’s.  We added on and subtracted from for our patterns, dipping into negative numbers as the pattern continued below zero.  The students also worked on an assessment for subtraction with regrouping, which we will be exploring further this week in 4^thgrade math.  The students had time to work on their ongoing fraction activity packet, “Show Me One Half.”  For this activity the students use Cuisineaire Rods (fraction sticks) to explore patterns with fractions.  We discussed the numerator and denominator, and how to determine what one whole is when comparing fractions with unlike denominators.

Blue Group math homework

Read for 30 minutes

Write for 15 minutes