Happy Halloween

Ahoy, Me Hearties! Our Pirate Escape Room was a success!  You all worked well as a group to solve the problems and open the boxes. I'm glad to see there was no mutiny about.  Blown me down, creating your treasure chests were fun to watch.  I hope you enjoyed the Halloween activities, you Landlubbers 😜

Working hard on our Pirate Escape Room 

Some of us had to WALK THE PLANK

STEM Challenge: Create a Treasure Chest

Wicked Witch Willebrand Winners!!

5th Grade Pirates...  I mean... Teachers 

Persevering Through Word Problems

The key to unlocking the mystery of word problems is to slow down and work on it step by step!  Often times we panic and throw our hands up and give up too quickly. I find it helpful to go through mental checklists, similar to this one we pasted into our notebook the other day. 

Step-by-Step Videos

I have included some videos below that go through a few word problems we have done in class, step by step with explanation.  This is a great reminder of what we did in class. The videos I found follow the strategies we do in class, very closely. 

The two videos below break apart lesson 7 into the two parts, we did not focus on part 2 in class but I have included it as reference..

Part 1: goes over different types of word problems such as, using remainders in quotient, increasing quotient, and multi-step problems. They also show the importance of finding meaning in each step and labeling.
Click Here: Part 1 of Lesson 2.7 (Practice 7)         

         

Part 2: goes over comparing models and finding the unit amount, as well as using organized charts to solve problems.
Click Here:     Part 2 of Lesson 2.7 (Practice 8)

                                                 

The video below follows two other examples of word problems.

One example was Mandy and Nacha's age comparison using a table.  The other example is figuring out the price of a washer when knowing the total of refrigerator, washer, and dryer.

Organized Chart and Bar Model Comparison example

           (click link above)

Lastly, this last video is more for parents.  Hi Parents! Hopefully you're reading this post.  Comment below and let me know if this video helps.  It compares the basic standard way you and I probably would have solved a problem when we were in school.  It then compares the same problem to how our Math In Focus (Singapore Math) program will approach it. I know sometimes it feels as though as this math program is a foreign language.  Sometimes it is! However, I found it helpful to see the connection between the two methods.

Comparing "Old Math" to "New Math"

         (click link above)

Common Core Standards:

5.NBT.5 Fluently multiply multi-digit whole numbers using the standard algorithm.

5.NBT.6 Find whole-number quotients of whole numbers with up to four-digit dividends and two-digit divisors, using strategies based on place value, the properties of operations, and/or the relationship between multiplication and division. Illustrate and explain the calculation by using equations, rectangular arrays, and/or area models

Was this helpful??

Comment below and let me know if these videos helped you with your homework or studying.

I look forward to hearing from you :)

Mentor Sentences in Word Study

  "Richard gave me one of his extra-rotten, weasel-eyed, green-toothed grins."  

  Last week we read the story, "My Rotten Redheaded Older Brother", by Patricia Polacco.  We used it to discuss story elements as well as well as using it to focus on some grammar activities. The sentence above was known as our 'mentor sentence'. We used it to discuss parts of speech, types of sentences, author's craft.   One of my favorite parts of this activity was the last day of analyzing the sentence.  Students had to imitate the sentence using the same structure Patricia Polacco used.  They came up with some great sentences!  We started some grammar centers in Rti and then continued them later on in the day in ELA.  In our grammar centers we worked on mentor sentences,  parts of speech BrainPop, parts of speech task cards, and a grammar board game we tend to play in Rti.