Welcome to Mr. Baker's Math and Science Home Page
It is hard to believe the year is coming to an end so quickly. With only a week left students are still working hard to engage in numerous activities. Many of the challenges they are facing are set at a Grade 5 level!
Students have learned many new concepts, procedures and skills. Throughout the year, students have been working on increasing their mental math strategies and how to engage in multi-step math problems with persistence. Students also started to see the benefit of using scientific reasoning while designing, building and modifying a variety of creations. All of these ideas are life skills that need continual practice and exploration. I hope everyone has a fantastic summer full of many adventures outdoors and in new locations. During these adventures, keep open a keen eye for connections to mathematical and scientific concepts that you learned at school. As we discussed, the connections are everywhere. The pool, zoo, science center, park almost anywhere. As you explore make sure to practice your mental math facts, computation procedures and engage in some math/science/logic puzzles to refine your skills before Grade 5. Wishing everyone a happy summer and enjoy the break.
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Our students have continued their focus on mental math processes and applying mathematical reasoning into multi-stepped problems. They worked through a collection of problems this week centered around the Calgary Zoo. The questions were:
1.The Zoo has created a new bridge from the Dinosaur section to the Panda exhibit. It is a suspension bridge. Bridges are amazing pieces of art and science. Let’s pretend this bridge can hold a recommended weight of 10 575kg.If we say an adult man weighs 80kg If we say an adult woman weighs 55kg If we say a child weighs 25kg How many people could fit on the bridge before someone would have to get off? 2.The lemurs have two new bridges. One of the bridges was made out of small wooden planks. If each plank was 5 and 3/4cms wide and there were 84 planks, how long was the bridge? 3.You are standing in front of the Flamingo area and you see 19 flamingos. Your little sister counts all the legs she sees. She said she saw 31 legs. How many different combination of 2 leg and 1 leg standers can you make? In science, students had to refine their debating skills as they engaged in a lively debate over a scenario of developing Nose Creek Park into a new recreation facility. Talk to your child about the pros and cons of city development. Our goal in June is to increase both our mental math strategies and our ability to be persistent while solving multi-step math problems. The students have been engaging in many activities, many of them different dice games. This weekend have your child teach you how to play Pig, Frog or Farkle.
Cannot remember the rules: Pig One player rolls two dice and adds the two numbers together They can either take the points or roll again and add the sums together Feeling lucky? they can continue rolling as many times as they want Once you stop you bank the points for that round You add each round together until you reach 100 points THE CATCH: you never want to roll a 1. that means you lose all points in that round -if you roll snake eyes you lose all points from all rounds Frog -roll two dice. If the numbers are different add them. If they are doubles multiply them. Do you keep the points? Or do you roll again? -Each round gets a possible 4 rolls -watch out for 1 s. If you roll a one you get 0 points for the round -Who wins after 5 rounds? How to play Farkle: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farkle Students are investigating numerous puzzles from this website: https://www.brainbashers.com/today.asp They can teach you how to do skyscrapers, 30 seconds and bridges. These are teaching many different mathematical skills. Happy Game Playing this weekend. |
AuthorHello, My name is Mr. Baker and this is my third year at NCS teaching Math and Science. Please visit my blog regularly for updates on what is being done in the class as well as for extra support with your learning. Archives
June 2019
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