Volume

The current sequence of work in mathematics is volume and today was a very hands-on approach. We recapped on linear measurements and surface area and then got stuck into volume. Firstly students made some basic 3D shapes and worked out their volume. Then they made open prisms on centimetre grid paper and then tested them against the 3D prisms they made from plastic interlocking cubic centimeteres. They worked in pairs. A few students have this job to finish for homework tonight (October 10th)

Cubic centimetres and that hand

Stay tuned to this page on the blog for more volume news.

Lesson 2 on Volume

Concept: To find volume work out how many layers there are and then multiply by the number of layers.

Students also learnt to use isometric paper to draw up some regular prism of their own, and then worked out the volume of each remembering to put cubic centimetres in the answer. The steps:

An impressive effort by AK, one of my grade 5 girls 

Lesson 3:

Today we had a double maths lesson and  students finished off their isometric drawings and then completed the following two activities. Constructing a 3D cubic cm shapes using the front view, side view and top view kept quite a few of them challenged for a while. 

Students had to make the shapes using the 3 views

We also introduced the formula of length x width x height to find the volume of regular prisms. Tomorrow we will be exploring this formula further with some discussion of the use of scales when representing the shapes.

Bread Making and a Big Maths Day...

First up today we did our usual Spelling Bingo game. We then watched a short clip on R.L.Stine discussing how he became a famous writer and I read a chapter from one of his books. We have a cauldron full of them in the classroom. I am encouraging students to read for half an hour every night. Some students said the only time they read is during Quiet Reading. So each week we will have a small focus on a writer and their works.

The vital ingredients

And...now a big thank you to Andrea who took a small group for bread making in the Social Area. It all went very well and the bread tasted delicious.They learned a lot about the process. A big thank you to Annette who located a knife and who helped the boys cut it into serving size pieces.  In the classroom we have been looking at what yeast looks like under the microscope. 

The finished product...yum!

We had a big maths today. The first activity was looking at the term difference (in terms of subtraction). Students played a game called Lucky Dip  where they drew out numbers from a paper bag and found the difference between them and gave an explanation of how they worked it out. The numbers in the bag ranged from 11 to 130. Some students found this an easy task whilst others were very challenged by it, especially explaining how they mentally worked through to get the answer.They have been asked to complete this task tonight for homework. Students also had time to complete their Flat Cubes task from last week. We then did some multiplication using Monster Grids and students were allowed to refer to their tables chart. We discussed some strategies of how to approach the 9 times table and practised these. Students will be graphing their results using a bar graph. We discussed how to use the graph works and looked at intervals. We also got in two quick games of Guess the Number. 

In the  afternoon, students began their word walls for Marvellous Microorganisms and half the class started their microorganisms jigsaw puzzles. During Quiet Reading,  I worked with the grade 5 girls reading about optical illusions and sound waves and about how you can improve your performance on Sing Star. We talkid about how to pay attention to punctuation when reading to improve the clarity of their delivery.

Monster Grids

Planning the jigsaw

The Essential Maths Kit

Since I have inherited a classroom with absolutely nada and I am a keen maths teacher, I have put together seven maths kits. That's enough for one kit per group of four students. These kits are extremely handy. My former colleague and I made up similar kits at Illawarra Primary  using pencil cases to store the contents, incidentally where mine remain for the new teacher coming in to that school. Anyway, each kit consist of 1 protractor, 1 solar-powered calculator , 1 tape measure, 1 mirror, 1 Pack of Jumbo Cards, 6 matching six-sided die, 1 zero to nine sided die, 1 twenty-sided die, 4 film canisters each containing a set of 15 , i.e there are four colours so students can play games. There is also a calendar for 2012 enclosed, thanks to my lovely local Shell shop. All the other contents are available at Chickenfeed for very reasonable prices, much cheaper than the school catalogue offers. There is a laminated card in each box stating its contents. Students are usually pretty good at keeping these organised.  I will probably also add a compass to each kit when I buy some.