Volume

Finding volume is tricky.  Remembering that the formula for finding the volume of a rectangular prism (box) is length times width times height.  We practiced calculating the volume for a number of different sized boxes.

Book reviews

Scholastic is challenging classrooms to read 100 books.  They will then donate books to those who don't have.  I have upped the challenge for my grade fives.  They have to demonstrate that they have read the book by writing a good book review.  They have until the end of May to read and write 5-6 books and reviews.  The first one is due this Friday.  The second will be due after Spring Break.  Their criteria for good book reviews is in an earlier post.  Their writing must also be neat, easy to read, and edited at a grade 5 level, as discussed in class.

Properties of Substances

In science, we have been working on characteristics of substances.  How scientifically, we can look at texture, flexibility, buoyancy, colour, hardness, strength, solubility and mass to categorize different substances.  Today in class the students were given different substances and they had to categorize or discribe each by the given descriptors.  The students had a tendancy to want to label or identify the substance, they needed to be reminded that, that wasn't today's job.

The Rights of Children

We are starting an area of learning about the rights of children.  The students are brainstorming about what they know or think they know about children's lives around the world.  They came up with quite a list.  They focused a lot on what children don't have.  So I asked the question: What should all children have the right to?

The students have a pretty good grasp on the topic.

Then we brainstormed what we want to find out

We read a book that had a shortened version of the stories of Malala and Iqbal.  Two children from Pakistan.  The students briefly talked to each other about what struck them from the stories.  The. They went back to their desks and wrote about what they were thinking.

Division - just what is it they are doing?

Long Division – new

__________

3) 829

We are treating the numbers as their true value.  So, it’s not 3 into 8, it is how many times does three go into 829, or you may want to start with 3 into 800.

I teach them to use ‘nice’ number first.  These are numbers that multiply easily – 1, 10, 100, and 1000.  

It doesn’t matter which they choose.  In this case they could be using 100, 10 or even 1s (the ones will take a long time)

3 x 100 is less than 800 so it will work.  

  _________

3) 829

  - 300        x100

     529        (I can take another 3x100 from that)

-    300 x100

     229 ( at this point 3x100 is too much, so 10s)

     - 30 x10

     199 (hmm maybe a couple of 3x10s)

-    180 x60

       19 (now ones – I can use my fact knowledge here)

      -18 x6

         1 ( can’t get any more groups of 3 – so that is my remainder

(count up the numbers of groups I multiplied out

100+100+10+60+6

276 r 1

    3) 829 Don’t forget to write in the answer and remainder

Owl Pellets

We dissected owl pellets in class today.  Once they got started, it was so quiet in the room.  We had really good pellets and we found sculls, jaws, and lots of smaller bones.  It was interesting to think about how these skeletons have similarities and differences to our own.

639x82=52 398 (another 5 ways)