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)

639x82=52 398 (five ways)

Controlling those numbers

Last week, I went to a workshop with Ms. Maths.  Wow!

I have brought those ideas back into the classroom.  They are learning to control the numbers instead of the numbers controlling them.  They are the masters of numbers.

Doing this, we go back to using expanded form.  We need to keep those numbers true to their value.  We have spent a couple classes playing with this.  Now to see if they were paying attention.  In class today I have given them 639x82 = 52398.  I have challenged them to prove it 10 ways.  They have started with their table groups.  Now they have to take it home on their own.  We'll see what they come up with.  I will post my 10 ways too.

Book Reviews

We have started writing book reviews in class.  We read several reviews and came up with a formula that our book reviews needed to follow.

Our book reviews need to start with the title of the book and the author.  These should be at the top of the page and underlined.
Next we begin the review with a question to draw the reader in.  We should give a short summary of the book.  Being careful to not give too much away.  In our summary we should include the characters and the problem in the book.  Before we finish, we need to give the reader some questions - things that they will have to read the book to find out!
Finally, we should recommend the book and make a comment about how much we liked it.
Sign our name - and we're done!

Field Trip to Fort Whyte

Today we had a great day at Fort Whyte.  In the morning, our session was on Weather.  We made a cloud in a bottle by pouring hot water into an empty pop bottle, lighting a match and putting it in, then closing the bottle up.  When we squeezed the bottle and then let go, it made a cloud - magic.  We found out that the raindrops needed dust particles to form (Liesl).  We got to use some real weather instruments and take some measurements ourselves.  Michael learned that our atmosphere is becoming filled with greenhouse gasses.  Our Ozone layer is becoming thinner, so more ultraviolet rays are getting in.  After we ate lunch everyone enjoyed the opportunity to touch the animals in the touch museum.  Then we had a session on People of the Prairies.  It was neat to see a house with grass growing out of the roof (Brady).  Tom really liked the coyote poop.  They knew it was coyote/predator because it had hair in it.  We went into a tipi and learned some things about the rituals of tipis such as entering clockwise and that tipi's face the East.  Sadly both groups had trouble counting the 13 poles that are used to construct a tipi.  The thirteen poles represented the thirteen full moons that occur over a year (Michael).  I think everyone's favourite part was the throwing of an atlatl.  Mr German threw it so far that they had to look really far for his spear! (Tom).  We saw a post that showed us just how tall a bison can grow (Matthew).  We learned that sometimes the Aboriginals used a corral to help them catch the bison (Tom).  There was such a lot to see there, we didn't get to see everything.  We had a great adventure.