Fourth grade continued to learn about division. As I mentioned on Tuesday, this is something that students learn at different paces. One group was practicing word problems – including some that contained variables which I thought would stump them but didn’t – while another group worked together on a division problem, and yet another group worked with me to learn the partial quotient method of division. The first group learned the partial quotient method on Tuesday and used the word problems to practice what they’d learned. The second group was introduced to this method, but it included one of my favorite moments of the day. Two students in this group had worked out very elaborate methods for dividing that worked some of the time, but not all of the time. I loved that they were willing to try new things. We talked about why their methods worked when they did and why they wouldn’t work all the time. One student said, “The bubble method just doesn’t work for me.” I felt my heart grow at least three sizes. THAT is exactly what we want. We want them to know when something works and when it doesn’t. I taught this group the partial quotient method and it was almost like watching a light bulb go off over their heads as they saw a more efficient way of dividing that also made more sense for them.
Second grade reading should have done some writing today, but I decided I wanted to make their heads hurt a bit so I changed my plans as we walked into class. Most of the group also sees me for math, which meant that some of it was a review, but we talked about word parts and their meanings. It was delightful to watch their heads explode as they saw how these word parts came together to give a word its meaning. I sincerely hope they don’t go home and call any of their grandparents or great-grandparents octogenarians this weekend, but if they do, please apologize on my behalf.
Almost half of our third grade math group was absent today. I changed those plans on the fly as well. Every graphing group was missing at least one person, so we’ll come back to graphs on Monday. Today we went back to my favorite game – 24. Students have a card with 4 numbers on it. They have to combine those numbers by adding, subtracting, multiplying or dividing them to arrive at 24. They work together on these, though the game is supposed to be competitive they’ve never played it that way, and their conversations are a great lesson in collaboration. While they (mostly) find the game to be fun, I have listened to their conversations develop and become more sophisticated as they locate patterns which make it easier to get to answer.
