I read a lot of blogs via email. I love to see what other teachers are up to. The most common math concept that has been blogged about lately has been Fractions. I love Fractions now as a teacher, but as a student I am sure I found them confusing!
Meg at Fourth Grade Studio has been posting for a few weeks now all about her Fractions unit she is completing with her students. I have been reading her Fractions posts via email since they started. Her latest Fractions post involving student thinking on a number line got me thinking about how great that lesson would be to use as a pre-assessment of what my students already know about Fractions.
I also got to thinking about my Fractions Unit introduction. I use the book “The Math Curse” by Jon Scieszka. In the book the narrator starts out on a normal Monday in Math class. Her teacher announces that everything could be seen as a math problem. The next day she wakes up and all day long she sees everything as a math problem. How long to catch the bus? The weight of something? etc. She feels she is cursed with math.
This is how I am going to use this resource:
-read the story aloud to my 8th graders
-have them work in groups to solve the problems in the book
-at the end of the unit, their culminating task will be to create a math story similar to this to share with their reading buddies in Grade 3 to help them understand fractions.
How do you make Fractions fun? interactive? make sense?
Please comment below. I love to read all of your ideas.
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I LOVE this book! Jon Scieszka has the most amazingly fun books ever! I was lucky enough to meet him one – he is a hoot! Anywho, I teacher 5th-8th math resource to kiddos who are way below math level. Fractions have been a big push for us this year. We spent about a week working on a fraction number line from 0 to 1… now THAT was an experience! I made a blog post about it… probably easier to read that than for me to explain the whole process here 🙂
And the fractions continue…
Love your blog, and your puppers! TOO adorable!
~Jamie
Mathematically yours,
MissMathDork!
Thanks for your comment. You are so lucky to have met Jon S. I just looked at your blog post. Great hands on Fractions idea. I subscribe to your blog via email 🙂
Hi, I'm trying to track down some awesome Canadian teacher bloggers who'd be interested in a blog hop for Canadian kids books with accompanying activities. Would you be interested in participating?
http://readingwithmissd.blogspot.ca/2013/02/booking-across-canada.html
Hi! Your dog is so cute! I'm your newest follower!
✿Sue✿
✿Science for Kids Blog✿
I like the desk thing is a good idea. I would need one if I had a desk.
I used to have the same problem with my desks, until we got tables. Anyone else feel like you are in kindergarten when you have tables.
I would love to try teaching with tables – less things would "live" inside them. But we only have desks.
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Thank you for sharing this! I am always interested in finding ways that literacy can be incorporated into a math classroom.
Thanks for your comment. It is always great to find cross curricular ideas! They are so hard to come by.
Thanks for your comment