(March's) Now april's Monthly Challenge

Aprils Monthly Challenge

GO FLY A KITE!!!!!!!!!!!
Your challenge is to construct a "functional" (Yes, it's my favorite word!) kite!Will your kite be big or small? What shape will you make?

Here are some links to help you brainstorm!!

http://www.skratch-pad.com/kites/make.html http://www.kckiteclub.org/DaveEllis/boxkite.htm
http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/K-12/airplane/kitepart.html

Due Friday, March 20. We'll have another "engaging parents" activity after school. I'll post the exact date after I have approval for the date!

Projected Math Topics for the Rest of the Year

***This is by no means a definitive list :) It is subject to change based on timing and student ability levels. But it will give you a good idea on where we are headed!

rounding numbers up to the nearest thousand
mental math (column addition)
estimating sums
adding with regrouping
subtracting with borrowing
telling time (to the minute)/elapsed time
counting money
making change (counting up to make change)
geometry (shapes, solids, perimeter, area volume, linear measurement)
basic fractions and mixed numbers


If there is time:
multiplication and division 0-10 times tables
decimals to the hundredths (identifying, adding and subtracting, comparing and ordering)
probability

This Week

Well, this week was a quick week! If we have school tomorrow, we won't have class because of Valentine's Day parties.

We've been practicing rounding to the nearest 10. We'll learn how to round to the nearest 100 and 1,000 and take a test next Thursday (2/22).

This Week

This week we focused on symmetry. The children have done several activities to investigate what makes an object symmetrical. They had the most fun with drawing symmetrical faces! They chose a picture of a person from a magazine and then cut their face in half. Next, they glued half of the face to a blank sheet of paper and then drew the missing side of the face, making it symmetrical. The children will take a quiz on symmetry on Tuesday and then we'll move back to rounding numbers on Wednesday.

1.15.07

Last week we worked on comparing numbers to 1,000. The children were comfortable with using greater than and less than, so they took a pop quiz on Thursday. This week we will move on to rounding numbers to 1,000.

Pumpkin Palooza

Well, it's sad to say, but Pumpkin Palooza is almost over! :( We started the week with pumpkin chunkin on Monday with help from some wonderful moms. Each child chucked a pumpkin 4 times. We measured the distance in inches. Once inside, we converted the distance (the measuring tapes only went to 60 inches, so to save time, we wrote down how many measuring tapes long the diestance was. For example, 312 inches was written as 5x60+12.) The children have been working hard with Ms Kochan's help, using a calculator to find the actual distance in inches, then figured out their average throw.

Next, we will work on compiling a list of the average throw for every child in the class.

Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, the children learned how to plot points on coordinate graphs. They've been having a lot of fun doing these and guessing what picture will be created from the dots or colored boxes :)