Saturday, March 29, 2014

BEAST Energy Cans


We discovered formulas for cylinders in our interactive notebooks. We practiced with real cylinders. All that was left was to do art with cylinders! I love it when art and math come together!


For this project I gave the kids the challenge of doubling the volume of a can but to not use too much aluminum. They had 3 options to choose from. Once they picked the one they thought met both criteria, they constructed the can. The fun part!


We measured and used protractors to get the cans to the exact size. They decorated them so that I would want to buy theirs off the shelf! 


You can find this project  in my TpT store if you want to try it in your classroom! 

I am so excited that this post was also part of my very first linky party! Linky party! Please visit all of these awesome blogs and see the fun math that is happening!


 

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Sunday, March 23, 2014

Cylinders


For some real practice I rummaged through my house, garage, closets, my next door teacher's closet, and my car to find enough CYLINDERS to do this activity! 


I am so glad I did because the kids really got in to it! I had them use rulers to measure the diameter of the circle. We used centimeters to make it easy! 




They worked really hard! Many wound up finding the surface area and volume of 6 cylinders! That's a lot for a 60 minute block! 


The sprinkles were the fave! And at least 10 kids asked if they could take the baked beans home! So look around and find some cylinders to practice with! Your students will love it!


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Saturday, March 15, 2014

Happy Pi Day Nerds!


Pi Day usually falls when our end of quarter testing is wrapping up so it's a perfect way to close the quarter. It also makes my classroom super cute for 4th quarter! 


I put the first 1000 digits of Pi on the SmartBoard for them to mark off as the chain is being made. Each digit is color-coded and I have the strips taped to the board for them to reference. We sit in a circle, of course, and just paper chain away! Each class always has a couple of leaders that step up to organize and make it happen. 


I hang it up and add little Pi die cuts to the loopty loops and voila! A perfect end to a math nerd day! 




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Monday, March 10, 2014

Pythagorean Theorem




Pythagorean Theorem around our school! This lesson came from Mrs. Hester. I love reading all of her amazing ideas! This is a great hands-on, real world, problem solving activity. 

The idea of this activity is that cable line needs to be put down for AT&T U-Verse service. Our job is to find out how much cable is needed by using the Pythagorean Theorem. Zooming in around my school on Google maps gave me a map of the area that included streets my kids live on. I put it in publisher so I could add where the "cable lines" would go ahead of time. It turned out like this.


The kids used a ruler and the scale of the map to figure out how much cable would be needed. We did the "cable" on the right together and they did the other with a partner in their interactive notebooks. 




This was a great activity to wrap up Pythagorean Theorem and to really check their understanding. It led to great conversation about having to use right triangles, using scale, and it was exciting to them to see their street on the map!






To see more real life math take a look at this linky party below!

4mula Fun The Teacher Studio Miss Math Dork Teaching to Inspire in 5th

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Sunday, March 9, 2014

Reflections with Names


More art in math! I love the Geometry in Pre-Algebra for this reason! In my search for something fun to do with reflections, I found this fun project!  I started with my name to have an example for my kids. I also showed them the finished names from Mrs. Howard's class photos. 


I found I had to say over and over NOT to cut all the way! Letters and names kept falling! And "uh, can I have another sheet" and "grrr, I have to start over" were flying! They did get the hang of it and I think they look amazing! Here are some of my faves! 







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Auction Time


The gigormous Mountain Dew went for 60 salutes! 


End of the 3rd quarter! I can't believe how fast the year has gone by. Now if we can just make it to spring break we are home free!

I use an auction at the end of the quarter as part of my behavior, work hard, motivation for the students. All through the quarter, I give salutes. Our school mascot is an Admiral so our school-wide positive behavior reward is a "salute." Students earn these for hard work and good behavior. Our school recognizes Admirals of the Week but I like to use them to motivate even more in my classroom!

The kids save their salutes for the whole quarter to use as money at the auction. In addition to the junk food in the buggy, I auction coupons for things in the classroom like sit anywhere for a day, math journal pass, drop a test grade. They love this! It's a great way to reward their efforts all quarter! And it's fun for me to see them so excited, planning and strategizing what they are going to bid on! 

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