Fourth grade math had a breakthrough today! Most groups figured out I was asking them to add in base 5. Despite the frustration that led to the breakthrough, I think most students were not unhappy with their determination. They had to do a lot of mathematical reasoning to get there, but in the end, it was all worth it. Tomorrow they’ll give subtraction in base 5 a try, which will really get at the heart of what we do we when “borrow” or regroup as we subtract.

Third grade reading had another day of simply reading books on ancient civilizations. The favorite book seems to be Poop Happened: The History of the World from the Bottom Up, which is not surprising. It’s a fan favorite every year. Students have given me their ranked choices for which ancient civilization they’d like to study. They will receive their assignments next week. I’m looking forward to this project!

Second grade found out that it’s harder than you’d think to make more than 1 using fractions. Their assignment today was to make 2 in as many different ways. Some found patterns that made it easier to come up with a lot of different equations while some struggled a bit with making that leap over one. Since all of this goes well beyond grade level expectations, I’m not worried by or for the students who struggled. Struggle is good and reminds everyone that we really can’t know everything and there’s always more to learn.

We had several more amazing conversations while discussing A Wrinkle in Time. Conversations ranged from “How do you square a square?” to “How can you balance between who you think you are and who other people expect you to be?” As the fourth graders start inching towards 5th grade and another school – no matter where that might be, these are important conversations to be having. Students will soon be meeting so many new people and and it’s important for them to be able to think about who they are as well as who their friends expect them to be.

Fourth grade was reminded why I’m not always their favorite person. They were given the following addition problem and asked to explain how it could be correct: 421 + 43 = 1014. There was a lot of complaining and a lot of asking for the answer. Rather than giving them the answer, they were given a few clues but were asked to keep working. There were some great conversations that show their understanding of our number system and many of them are pretty close to having a breakthrough. Alas, I won’t see them again until Thursday so they have another whole day to contemplate just how mean I can be. I was delighted by the fact that they continued to ask about the math problem when I saw them again for reading and then again at lunch.

Third grade readers were asked to choose which civilization they’d most like to study for the remainder of the year. While I will do my best to ensure everyone gets their first choice, some students may not. We will spend a good chunk of the rest of the year doing research on ancient civilizations. Students will learn how to organize information, how to plan ahead, how to ask good questions, and how to share the information they’ve learned with an audience. This is a pretty big undertaking, but I know they’re up to it!

If you heard any strange noises this morning around 10:30ish, it was the sound of second grade brains exploding. We’re wrapping up our study of fractions, but I couldn’t let that study go without pushing their understanding beyond what would be expected of second graders. Rather than using Cuisenaire Rods, we reviewed yesterday’s work. One group made the best mistake yesterday and I made a big deal about how much I loved that mistake. When asked to come up with many different ways of making a whole, they used their Cuisenaire Rods and then wrote equations. One group’s equations showed an imperfect understanding – one that is very common – about fractions. An example: 2/4 + 1/2 = 3/6. We spent some time drawing pictures and trying to work out what they’d done. Along the way, we learned how to add fractions with unlike denominators, that drawing pictures is often a good way to help understand what we’re trying to do, and that 1/2 is equal to a LOT of different fractions and even though they have different numerators and denominators, they all represent the same fraction of a whole number.

Fourth grade reading jumped right back into their discussion of A Wrinkle in Time. It can be frustrating for some as our conversations often veer away from the book’s specifics and into the bigger picture the book is trying to convey. Today we talked about how Meg is trying to figure out who she is and who she’s trying to be. Along with that we discussed how you can never really know someone’s story and for that reason, it pays to be kind even in the face of friends who make poor choices and to never assume that everything is great for someone, even when it might look that way on the surface. It was a great conversation and I look forward to another one on Thursday as we try to catch up on our reading discussions.

I didn’t see everyone in third grade math today. Market Day is coming up, so some students were busy making their goods and another class was in iSTEM. I took the opportunity to teach my smaller group of students how to play Prime Climb. It is a fabulous math game that really requires students to think about where and how they’re moving. We didn’t finish, but they started to see how tricky it can be to make progress considering the rules of the game. This game is a great way for students to practice their math facts – from addition to division.

Welcome back from break!

I eased fourth grade math back into the school year by playing a game called Don’t Break the Bank. This game starts with 9 empty squares organized in 3 rows of 3. Students roll a 10-sided die and must put that number in one of the 9 squares. Once the die has been rolled 9 times, students must add the three 3-digit numbers. Their goal is to come as close to 1000 without going over. This game requires students to think strategically, but also to estimate across three different place values in order not to go over 1000. While students can (and do) easily estimate what should go in the hundreds place they often don’t take into account the ones and tens place, which can have them going over 1000. Estimating is an important skill and is one in which most fourth graders need a lot of practice. They had fun and one group even asked me to send the game to their classroom teacher so they could play with other students once they were back in class.

Third grade reading jumped back into their discussion of civilizations. We looked at what some of the hallmarks of a civilization are, which has required some vocabulary work as talk about hierarchical social structures as well as what we mean when we say culture. We did dip back into our study of Britain as we looked at the succession of the British crown. The girls were, naturally, very unhappy to learn that as recently as five years ago, girls would not become king if they had a younger brother. They were happy to learn that’s been changed, but it’s always interesting to see how recently these things have changed.

Second grade math was given a challenge today: to use their Cuinsenaire rods to determine all of the many ways of adding to one whole. I modeled the activity by using all of the easy ones (8 1/8th cubes, 4 1/4 cubes, and 2 1/2 cubes and then told them they couldn’t use those combinations but they could mix and match them. It took a few tries, but the sound of “Ohhh!!!” in the classroom was repeated again and again as students began to understand how to add fractions of different sizes to make a whole. Tomorrow we’ll go a step further and I expect a few brain explosions before the day is over.

Second grade reading dipped their toes into a new activity today. They will be learning how to conduct a Socratic Seminar. We’ll be taking this slowly as this is a very new way of learning and talking about what they’re reading. Today’s challenge was learning how to take turns talking when you’re not allowed to raise your hand. We’ll go back to this on Friday, but I’m definitely looking forward to hearing what they have to say. This is a very opinionated and lively group of students!