Week 3

(This was sent home today)

Our third week is complete! We are off and running now! 5^th grade math is pivotal in setting up students for middle school math, and ultimately success in algebra. For the most part, students are doing well at listening closely, following along, using their white boards to work through examples, practicing their math skills during Math With Teacher rotation, and completing homework.  Without an official textbook to bring home, students are doing well at building a math journal (our 3-ring binder) that houses important concepts.

Please continue to “quiz” your student at home. We’ve been continuing our work on multiplying and dividing whole numbers and decimals by 10, 100, 1000. Example problems:  4.56 x 100    0.357 x 1000   59 x 10

     567 divided by 1000     0.67 divided by 10    4578 dividing by 100

We’ve also worked with exponents.

Examples:  4.5 x 10²     4.67 x 10³      1,000,000 = 10⁶ = 10x10x10x10x10x10

   45.6 divided by 10²    7895 divided by 10³

Finally, I will have my grade book online later this weekend. This year, the district’s 5^th grade math teachers are only to grade assessments. I’ll still keep track of homework, but it won’t be figured into the overall grade. So far, assessments have been our “exit tickets” from each lesson/overall concept. We’ve had 3 so far, and if a student doesn’t get 100% the first time, I pull him/her back to work with me during Math with Teacher, or during our Intervention time in the afternoon. After 4 times of extra help, if 100% still isn’t achieved, I put the final score in the grade book. At any time throughout the year, if a student wants to raise that score, they can make an appointment with me before or after school, or during afternoon recess (when I’m not on duty) to do the exit ticket again. We will also have tests that cover multiple concepts as we progress.