Mathematical Analyzer and Thinker Award Goes to Rebecca!

This week, our class has been analyzing the song The Twelve Days of Christmas, and using some very important math thinking skills to solve two major problems I developed from this favorite Christmas tune.  One of the problems was to determine how many total items were given to "the true love," the recipient of the lavish gifts mentioned in the song. Students analyzed each stanza to build a number line outlining how many items were given each day and then used the daily totals to figure out their final answer.  Once they had finalized and checked their work, they wrote their answer on a slip that was placed in our drawing.  After I took out all those who submitted the wrong answer, a winner was chosen. Congratulations to Rebecca, our Mathematical Analyzer and Thinker!  She won a New York City t-shirt bought from the heart of NYC in Time Square when Miss Tripp visited there earlier this fall.  A special thank you to all the students for their hard work and dedication in developing their math thinking skills this week!

Check out our blog post on the Twelve Days of Christmas activity if you would like to enjoy the challenge of math with a festive Christmas flair!

How Many Miles Till Bethlehem? The Christmas Story From a Modern Day Perspective

We have all been in the car when someone's asked, "Are we there yet?" or "How many more miles till we are there?" Experience the book, How Many Miles to Bethlehem in a different light as you consider how much money the traveling groups in this story saved by walking.

Using today's scenarios I created in the handout below, infuse a modern day perspective into the timeless Christmas story.  Students will refine their long multiplication skills while taking on the challenge of figuring out the costs of these traveling groups in today's different vehicles.  Happy calculating!

For students finishing early, allow their creative language arts juices to flow as they rewrite the Christmas story incorporating the travelers use of the modern day vehicles listed in this activity!

Data Analysis With a Mission!

For the last two weeks, my students have been on a math mission that has taken them through the exciting world of data analysis.  They were presented with a special request that brought them excitement, fervor, and purpose for delving into this very important world of math learning. Follow us through our mission as we take on data analysis with a mission!

The mission:
After dividing into groups, the students were assigned a part of the planning process for the Christmas party. Each team brainstormed to develop their question that would help them collect data for their simple survey. We drew our tally tables that listed our categorical data, and once we were ready, we set out to collect our numerical data.

As we marked our tallies, we noted it under either the boy or girl column to later be able to build not only single bar graphs, but also double bar graphs; keeping boys and girls votes separate would also be another way to help us further analyze our collected data.

Using our collected data, we set about creating our different types of graphs to communicated our data. We used an online program called Kids Zone, Learning with NCESS, Create A Graph.  We drew single bar graphs to represent the frequency of our categorical data and double bar graphs to further note the differences in our data between the boys and girl's choices.

Below are two books created to display our single and double graphs.  As you read our book, look under the graphs for our observations and party recommendation we made for the teacher we worked with.

Single Bar Graph Book by Ms Witherspoon's Class:

Double Bar Graph Book by Miss Tripp's Class:

After completing this project, here we brainstormed on how we could improve our work:

1. Many of us needed to make sure the intervals on our graphs were not decimals but whole number.  Therefore we needed to change the range we entered into the computer program.

2. Carefully consider the differences between an observation and recommendation and make sure both of these we wrote were solely based on our data.

3.  Analyze our written ideas to see if we have clearly communicated our ideas. 

4. Spend more time proofreading our work, checking carefully for capitalization, punctuation, and complete sentences.

5. When we developed our choices for our survey, we tried to use variety of ideas, especially offering healthy choices in the foods and drinks.  We could have researched for a greater variety of choices that were more likeable. 

A very special thank you to Mrs. Spillers for allowing my homeroom class to work with her class in collecting data for this special project.  Also, thank you to Mrs. Connelly for allowing Ms. Witherspoon’s class to do the same with her students.  Ladies, you both helped “hook” my students' interest in helping you out, and in turn this sparked their motivation for learning.  Thank you for being a part of the fourth grade learning process! 

The Conga Line of Learning!

Do you ever had a time where students jump into the learning process and bring a fun attitude for learning?  Well, my students certainly brought this perspective as they decided to turn our skip counting by 12's into a conga line of learning.  It's exciting to see the students use their creativity to make learning more enjoyable and dynamic!  Way to go students...all of you shine brightly as you motivate yourself to learn :)

Latin Fun Skip Counting by 11's

I have been so excited about the fun my students and I have had every morning as we sing to practice our skip counting.  This week, congratulations to Ms. Witherspoon's class for doing such a great job with the 11's.  I can't wait to see how a simple activity like singing will be so helpful as we start multiplication in the next couple weeks!  Keep up the SUPER job, students!

Enthusisams and Energy, Skip Counting by 9's

My students have experienced so much fun and enjoyment through learning to skip count by different numbers.  This week they learned their 9's, and it is exciting to see a skill that could be difficult become a time of enthusiastic learning!  These skip counting experiences make multiplication facts much easier to learn or figure out!  Teachers, how do you use skip counting in your class?  Students, how is skip counting helping you be more successful in math class? 

Skip Counting by 7's

I am so proud of all my students' hard work as they learn to skip count!  I know it's getting harder, but stay dedicated, and I'd love to feature you on my this skip counting post!

Elijah counting by 7's



Great job singing Miss Tripp's homeroom class!