Math

We are nearing the end of our first math unit. This week we have focused on fact families so students understand how addition and subtraction are related. It took several days of practice for some to realize exactly how these number relationships work. For instance with the numbers: 8  4  12  these four number sentences can be constructed: 4+8=12  8+4=12  12-8=4  12-4=8

We have also done some work with equality and moving the equal sign. This was sort of tricky for some of us! Students learn that 8=4+4  says the same thing as 4+4=8. Students should understand that no matter where the equal sign is, they can still find the solution.

Students worked on finding whether an equation was true or false. For instance: 4+3=6+1  would be a true statement. We learned that the equal sign can sometimes be in the middle and we can add or subtract each side to see if they are equal. If not, the statement is false. This is definitely a new concept that we will revisit later this school year.

More practice with story problems and showing their thinking and explaining their strategy was also done.

Our next unit which will  begin after Thanksgiving break is our Data unit. The essential questions are: What is data? How do we use data? These are the skills the students will be learning:

- organize and interpret data with up to three categories
- represent data with up to three categories
- ask and answer questions about the total number of data points.
- ask and answer questions about how many in a category.
- ask and answer questions about how many more or less are in one category than in another.