Relationship Between Units

During the last few math classes we have been working on looking at the relationship between mL and L, and grams and milligrams.  

We did a problem yesterday that gave us some difficulty, so we talked about it today and went over strategies that we could use to solve it.

 

One thing we talked about that we needed to remember was making sure that we properly read the question.  This is where many of us made mistakes.  The second thing that we need to remember is the relationships between units.  In this case we needed to remember that 4 cups is the same as 1 litre.  1 litre is the same as 1000ml. We have written this down on our cheat sheet, and it is also on an anchor chart in our room.

We will continue to work on problems like this next week, and will most likely have a test on mass and capacity the week after that.

Ms. Pike

Success Criteria: Procedural Writing

We are busy working on writing procedures.  As of now, everyone has written at least 1 procedure.  We are going to write 3 procedures and then choose the one that we would like to take to the publishing stage.  

We talked about what makes a good procedure.  We then co-created success criteria on what our procedure should include.  Each student has a copy of this, and it's also hung up on the wall.  Before we hand in our work, at each stage of the writing process, we will check it against the success criteria to help ensure that we have included everything that we need.

Ms. Pike

Learning About Mass

 We began learning about mass today.  We created a class chart to help use see the relationship between grams and kilograms.  We each copied is chart to make a cheat sheet for ourselves for later use.

In pairs, we worked on a problem of our choosing to see how a farmer could divide up a tub of apples.  The type of problem that we did is called a parallel task.  Here were the choices:

(Sorry for the funny colour: our data projector acts up sometimes.)

When we done we looked at the different ways we can solve a problem like this.  We saw how using adding, subtracting, multiplication and division all can help us.  We also talked about the importance of writing the unit after each unit of measure.

Ms. Pike :)

Time test answers: small group

Today we talked about our answers from our time and temperature test.  Here are the good answers we had for each question.

Knowledge and understanding:

All 4questions correct gave you a level 4

Thinking

To get a good answer you needed to show how one person took longer than The other.  You also needed to convert the units to the same (all seconds or all minutes).  Also, a clear final sentence was important.

Communication

For this question using math vocabulary was important to talk about the relationship between days and weeks.  To get a 4 you could have given an example like: if you are 52 weeks old we could also say that you were 365 days old.  Here is a sample of an answer that was in the level, but needed a bit more explaining.

Application

This question required us to justify, which means to give reasons as to why we are right.  We had to apply our knowledge of temperature (and reading a chart) to help us solve it.

After March break we will be working on mass and capacity.

Ms. Pike :)

Time test answers: Large Group

Today we got our math tests back.  We talked about what a good answer for each question was.  We used the ladybug to see examples of the good answers.  Here is part of our discussion:

Knowledge and understanding - Level 4

All questions were correct. 

Thinking 

Both of these questions were level 3 because the thinking was clear in both.  Although one had a mistake, we could see where the mistake was made and how it was more of a calculation error than a thinking error.  Both had clear sentences with their final answers.

Communication

We talked about how subtraction can cause problems if we didn't use it correctly.  For this answer, the students needed to talk about the differences in regular subtracting (increments of 100) and subtracting in time (increments of 60). 

Application

This question was a little tricky for most of the students.  They did not do all of the steps necessary to solve the problem, and therefore did not get full marks.  Many of them were able to get part marks for showing what they had started to do.  So, we did this problem together to show what makes a good answer.

After March Break we will be working on mass and capacity.

Ms. pike :)

How long will we work?

Yesterday's problem was a little tricky for the large group.  It was called "Movie Money" and we had to find out how long a person at the movies had to work.

As a class we read the problem, then did a K -W-C to help us understand the problem :

Many of us struggles to remember the conditions of the problem and put all of the steps into order to solve this problem.  Today we used the ladybug to help us talk our way through the problem.

We broke the problem down into steps.  Then we put the steps together to help us see what time the person needed to be at work at.  Then To find out what time they would end their shift at.  We also put together a number line to find out how many hours the person would work and then wrote out our answer in a clear sentence.

I think we all feel a little better in answering problems like this in the future.

Happy learning!

Ms. Pike :)

What Is The Silver Birch Award?

In library today, B noticed that the non-fiction booke he took out had a special sticker on it that said "silver birch award official selection."  He was wondering what it was, so when we got back to the classroom we had a chat about it. 

We found out that the silver birch award is an award given to books that received the most votes.  The best part is, that it's students who get to do the voting.  The award is offered by the Ontario Library Association.  There are a list of fiction, non-fiction, and express titles.  If you are interested in seeing the list of titles go to : www.accessila.org then click on Current Years Nominees.  This will give you a list of books for this year and winners in previous years.

Happy Reading!

Ms. pike :)

Working on answering questions.

We are so excited that we now have a ladybug to help us learn.  We share it with the other junior division classes, but today it was all ours!

The ladybug lets us put our work under it and then show it on the screen.  Today we used it to peer mark / review a few answers to an inferencing question we were working on.

Here at Brock (like many other schools) we use the RASE model to answer a question.  RASE stands for:

R - restate the question

A - answer the question

S - support the answer with details

E - explain the details.  

Here are the examples we shred today.  Thank you to N & J for sharing their work!

You can see the notes we made, and the revisions, to help improve this answer from its original state.

Here was our second piece we talked about:

We talked about the differences between the two pieces, and why we think one would be marked higher than the other.  The remaining students then had a chance to go back and edit their piece to help them be more successful.

Great job room 24!

Ms. pike :)

Time Problems

Today, we worked in pairs to solve problems involving time.

The small group did these problems: 

 

When we were done we showed each other the work and did a congress where we talked about the math.  Out thinking, or editing, is done in black: 

We talked about how important it is to show our thinking when solving a problem.  This is something we need to remember when we do future problems.

The large group did these problems:

Here is what we talked about when we did our congress:

We concluded that it was important to use the same unit when talking about elapsed time (e.g. All minutes or all hours)

What we are learning in Language

Over the last few weeks our class has been working on making inferences.  We started by talking about what an inference is, and how we create one:

We then learned how to use the graphic organizer called the O-W-I to help us make inferences.  The O stands for what we observe, the W stands for what we wonder, and the I stands for what we infer

 

 We worked as a class, in partners, and then on our own to make inferences about images.  Then we worked our way up to making inferences about ideas in text.  To help us know what to put in our answer, we co-created success criteria for what makes a good answer.  This is it:

We are now working independently to make inferences about fiction and non-fiction texts.

At home, you can help your child by asking them questions when they are done reading.  Questions like:

What can you infer about the characters personality?

What inferences can you make about the relationship between character 1 and character 2?

How do you think the character felt when s/he saw/did/watched....? Why do you infer that?

Happy Inferencing!

Ms. Pike