Library Field Trip

We had a lovely time on our trip to the Ann Arbor District Library yesterday.  The students listened to a story, had a tour of the children's section, and each had an opportunity to check out two books.  Those books are due on January 14th, to any branch of the library.

Expanded Notation

A huge part of our Everyday Math curriculum is learning about place value. In this activity, we represented three digit numbers with base ten blocks and expanded notation. For example: 

324 = 300 (3 hundreds) + 20 (2 tens) + 4 (4 ones)

The Money Exchange Game

Our latest math game is a great one for learning basic exchanges of 10.  In this case we used dollars. Each child has an exchange mat, and rolls the die to see how many dollars to take from the "bank" on each turn.  Once they have ten single dollar bills, then can exchange for a ten dollar bill.  The first player to have ten ten dollar bills can exchange for a hundred dollar bill and is the winner of the game.

Map Work

This week we explored maps of downtown Ann Arbor. We partnered up to find the grid locations of several locations in our home town, including two places we have traveled  or will be traveling to on field trips! We also used the key (legend) to find parking structures and learn about the different districts of the downtown area. The maps that came home are for the children to keep.

Book Reviews

This week as part of our persuasive writing, we began writing book reviews and restaurant reviews. For our book reviews, students needed to focus on their opinion of characters, exciting plot events, and age recommendation, among other things.  Here are a few photos of the students sharing their book reviews with the class.

Salute!

The children have been enjoying a fun new math game called Salute! This one can be played at home with a regular deck of cards.  (See directions below- click on each photo to see it larger.)