Wednesday 30 November 2016

Showing Clines

A visual representation of distance: 



Amazing questions - making the links.

Mathematical language is a great part of understanding mathematics. It can be the key to connecting ideas and when to apply mathematical concepts. 

Here we look at how our number system helps us convert types of measurement.  

We can see the words gives us a clue as to how it relates.  
Vera asked " why do all the words have metres in it"
" what does centi mean?"
- this discussion led to the meaning of century - being 100." Then we made the links.. So what does milli mean... 

This is the best part of teaching, when students direct and ask the questions and discussions occur so meaning is authentic to them.  


Monday 28 November 2016

Measuring our foot steps..

Today we started our measurement challenge sponsored by " Be Healthy, Be active." 

Can we walk the entire length of NZ in a day? 

This activity is designed for year 5/6 students.  However in our small groups we are challenging ourselves and learning  so much along the way.  

Here we are measuring our foot step with a piece of string.


Is this the best and most accurate measurement?? 

We tried again.. 
 

After we found out the length we went around measuring various objects. 


Here we decided everyone's foot step is a different size. We all had different measurements. 

We noticed it's not always the tallest person with the biggest foot step. 

We discussed which foot steps were the biggest and smallest.  Using ordinal numbers (1st, 2nd....) we could order the steps. 


We are looking forward to our next step! 

Tuesday 22 November 2016

Geometry - applying our learning.

Getting ready for Sophie to teach the teacher and class about making a cube. 

Thank you Rebekah for showing us how to create a Venn Diagram and how it can help classify shapes. 

Well done team!! 

Making and talking about 3D shapes

Creating nets for our 3D shapes. 



Thursday 17 November 2016

Our Voice wall.

Angles

Students Reflections Today:

- There are acute and obtuse angles
Acute means smaller than a right angle and Obtuse means bigger than a right angle.- By Wilma

How to draw a three d shape - Sophie

I learnt the names of different angles - Nessa

A prism has rectangular faces - Joshua

I learnt the difference between a prism and pyramid.  It is about its faces.


Wednesday 16 November 2016

Sharing our classroom maths

Today Isabelle came back and shared her fantastic learning she had completed in class.

She was given a number (100) and was asked to create her own problem.  She used so many maths concepts in a wonderful word problem. Check it out below!! 

Fantastic work, please come and show us anytime!! 
 
Nicole and Shavaun have been making posters in their classroom showing the strategies they can use when adding or multiplying numbers together. 

You explained this very well Girls!! 
thank you for sharing and teaching the others. 









Tuesday 15 November 2016

Teaching others


When you are able to teach someone else and answer their questions you must have real understanding of the Maths.

Learning from the experts today. 

Making and breaking numbers: if we can master this then we can add, subtract, multiply and divide more easily! 



Using the different tools to solve problems.

Here the group is sharing their tools for learning...







Sausage Sizzle number problem

Keeping our learning relevant:

At our Sunnyhills School BBQ we had 6 rows of 8 sausages.
How many sausages is that altogether?

How did we work this out?? 

8 groups of 6= ?
5 groups of 6 is the same as 6 groups of 5 = 30 sausages and another 3 groups of 6 is 18 
30 + 18 = 48 

Mandy showed us on the abacus 
This is great to see the patterns of numbers. 

8 groups of 5 = ?
8 X 5 = 40
And
1 group of 8 = 40 + 8 = 48. 


Using our 5 X tables to work out a problem with our 6 times table can help us. 

Well done group!! 


Thursday 3 November 2016

Geometry you tube clips

Here are some popular raps to help explain and remember the properties of the shapes.

Please spend time thinking about similarities and differences. 

Students can then find ways they can compose (make) and decompose (break) shapes.  This powerful skill is one way to reinforce and practice spatial awareness.


  

Geometry Today...

Current research states that geometry and in particular spatial skills is a key to mathematical success.

These skills also support the future STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) careers.

How do we include Spatial Awareness in our mathematic classes?? 

Visualising shapes and talking about how these shapes are made.  (Composing/decomposing shapes)

Here are some clues of our mystery shape:
We gave one clue at a time - most children found this relatively straight forward until clue 5, We worked as a group to solve it and then watched a youtube clip to get a greater understanding;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EcuzXwtamJc







Answer:

A parallelogram


Can you see the multi link cubes used to create the parallelogram ( do you notice the angles are the same when they are opposite each other?). 


From there we looked at other shapes - rectangles and triangles and saw how this parallelogram was composed.  This activity gave us wonderful mathematical discussions. 

Tuesday 1 November 2016

Using our stories to create word problems.


Together we are collaboratively working on methods to understand and show our understanding... 

Abraham has used the place value blocks to create an array or a model to show his thinking.  
He is able to show how to multiply two digit numbers. 

Here he is explaining to others his understanding!!
Ka pai!!