Growth, Growth, Growth!!

Miss Barber's students were SO excited about their growth on their timed fluency quizzes that they couldn't even stay in their seats! During our last round of testing, EVERY SINGLE STUDENT IMPROVED their score! In these pictures, we are holding up our graphs that show our growth. We are so proud!!

How do area and perimeter change?

We have recently been investigating area and perimeter. We know that perimeter is found when we "ADD ALL SIDES" and area is found when we "COVER UP" or find the "SPACE INSIDE."  Last week we investigated what happened when we took a rectangle or triangle, cut it into two pieces, and rearranged them to form a new shape. What happened to the perimeter? What happened to the area? Here are our answers!

Rubik's Cube Tournament!

Today our school Rubik's Cube team competed in the state tournament! I thought I would just go check it out for an hour or so but I ended up staying all day because it was so exciting! Our team won FOURTH PLACE in our division! I am so proud of these awesome kids! And I'm so glad I got to spend the day with them at ASU West. They are so in love with "college life." Mission accomplished!

On a side note - Miss Barber officially solved the Rubik's Cube by herself today!!!!!

Guess My Rule

"Guess My Rule" came from the Rodel Foundation. To play I put a secret algebraic rule (expression) under the Guess My Rule machine. Then we put a number into the machine and see what comes out. We record our input and output on a chart. Students then get to guess the rule. If someone writes a rule that you agree with, you can put a check mark next to the rule.

In this example, we put in a 1 and got a 3. So our rule could be "divide the input by 1, then add 2" because 1 divided by 1 plus 2 equals 3. Or our rule could be "add 2" since 1 plus 2 is 3. 

Then we put another number into the machine. We check our first guesses. If they don't work for both sets of input/output numbers, we erase them and guess again. 

When we put in a 2, we got an 8. That means that our first guess of "divide by 1, add 2" doesn't work because 2 divided by 1 plus 2 equals 4, not 8. Our second guess doesn't work either because 2 plus 2 is 4. So we erased both guesses and guessed again. 

 We continue putting numbers into the machine until we find a rule that works for all our inputs and outputs. 

In this example, our guess of "multiply by 5, subtract 2" works for all three number pairs. 

Finally we check our rule by moving the machine to see the rule underneath!

Grandmas and Algebra!

We recently read an excellent book called "The Doorbell Rang" by Pat Hutchins and used it to show off our division and algebra skills.

In the book, a mother makes cookies for her two children and tells them to share.

Then, more and more friends arrive at the house and the number of cookies each child receives gets smaller and smaller.

The cookies look and smell delicious, but on each page we read that "no one makes cookies like Grandma!"

At the end of the story, Grandma arrives with more cookies for everyone!

First, we wrote the mutliplication and division fact families represented by the situation in the book.

Then, we wrote an equation that represented the relationship between the number of cookies, the number of children, and the number of cookies each child would receive.

Finally, we graphed the equation.

And as a big surprise, Grandma came to visit the next day and brought us cookies!

Algebraic Patterns

We are learning about finding patterns in algebra. We can see our patterns best when we put our data in a function table, determine if the pattern is increasing or decreasing, then find the rule that describes the pattern. Here's a video that demonstrates what we've been working on in class.

Multiplying Two Digit Factors

Watch this video for a reminder on multiplying two digit factors!

Long Division

Need help remembering how to divide large numbers? When fact families don't help, use this method that we've been practicing in class!