For the Love of Pi

Hey guys sorry its a day late but this week for Maniac Math Monday I want to discuss calculating with circles and pi. When I student taught last year circumference was a huge topic. One of the hardest concepts when discussing circumference or the area of circle is pi. Pi is such an abstract concept for students. Most just don’t understand why we have to use a random 3.14…blah blah… number to find the area or circumference of a circle. Well we did an activity that showed students why pi was “3…and a little”.

Students were given circular objects and given yarn. The students then had to take yarn and place it around the round edge of a circular object and cut it so that is it exactly the length of the outside edge of the circle. Then the students had to find the diameter of the round object with a ruler. Once finding the diameter the students take their yarn and measure off the diameter and cut the yarn into however many “diameters” they can. If done properly all students will get “three and a little” (pi = 3.14) to show why we use pi for calculations with circles.

I enjoyed doing this activity with my students. It helps pi make a bit more sense and helps them remember what number pi is.

Have you done an activity similar to this? 

~Manda

Reading Groups & Leveling

Happy Friday! I'm so glad the day and week are over! This week has been insane with the CRCT-M going on. Today I tested a group (math), and we had to stop between sections and eat lunch before going on to the second section. Needless to say most of my day was spent testing...and it had to be read aloud on top of it!

This week for our Friend or Foe topic, I want to talk about reading groups and reading levels. Do you do guided reading, literature circles, something else, or maybe a mixture? How do you feel about groups and leveling?

There are so many methods to "level" our kids, what method do you prefer? Or does your school/district have a required method? How do you feel about these methods? Our district uses STAR Reading to determine a students level. Some schools in the district use Read with Sarah. The schools do use GRASP along with STAR, but only once a 9 week period. STAR is done monthly. I think that progress monitoring our students is very important, but I think we need more to go on.

Let's just take our son for example...he is in first grade and despises the STAR test. Until recently, the AR tests have been read to the first grade students. STAR they have to do completely on their own. It times them and if they spend too long on one question the timer starts flashing and then it moves to the next question. The timer makes him a little anxious...Well he has been getting a score grade equivalent to 0.6-0.8 (Kindergarten) most of the year and recently got a 1.4 on it. However, he actually reads much higher than this and comprehends even higher. We read Percy Jackson (4th grade) books at bed time. For a while his teacher kept him in the lowest reading group in the class. When he would say "this book is so easy" she would tell him he needed to work harder on STAR so she could put him in group with a harder book. I feel like if we place students like this when we know they perform higher we are doing them an injustice. I'm not just saying this because it's my kid, there are several students in the same class and other classes in the school that are being done similarly. What do you think?

~Steph

Social Studies Review Game

Hey everyone it is time for Through Time and Space Thursday! This week we are focusing on Social Studies. I wanted to talk about an activity that is a fun way to review and gets the students out of their seats. This activity may seem a little crazy but my students loved it and it really helped me see what social studies things they remembered and what they did not.

My supervising teacher and I called this a Social Studies Snow Ball Fight. The first thing we did was put the students into pairs and give then a social studies term. It was a range of people, battles, and key terms. The students had to use two scrap pieces of paper. One sheet had the term on it and the other had a definition or explanation of that term. Once all pairs were finished these pieces were taken up and then passed out to random students. This way each student had a piece of a pair and then the students were split in half and put on opposite sides of the room. The students were then ready for the snow ball fight. They got to ball up their paper and throw it at the other “team”. Each person only got to throw their “ball” once and then they were to pick up a “snow ball” and their job was to find the other person that had the snow ball that matched theirs. Students were helping each other find their match and we played several rounds so that I was able to see what terms gave students the most trouble. It was a fun activity and the students enjoyed it so much I don’t even think they knew they were reviewing. I think it is a great way to review a wide range of topics and keep the students involved. 

What kind of crazy review games have you tried? 

~Manda

Podcast pt.5 Glogster

Hey everyone it is time for Tech Wiz Wednesday and that means it is also time for Part 5 of our Podcast series. This week we are both going to talk about Glogster.

What Steph has to say:

I talked about Glogster in my podcast…if you haven’t ever used it you should really check it out! I LOVE it! I mentioned that I would use it as a different medium for my students to present work. I also love the idea of using for a information source for my students or as a WebQuest, an inquiry-oriented lesson format in which most or all the information that learners work with comes from the web. Here’s a look at a couple of Glogs that I created for some of my college classes (some of the links/info may be broken or outdated).

Social Studies: Juan Ponce de Leon

This was more designed with teachers in mind. It was a resource of a variety of information on the topic.

Science: Sound

This was a WebQuest for 4^th grade students. Includes: essential question, vocabulary, discussion/notes (powerpoint), video, and short review quiz

What Manda has to say:
In my podcast I focused on how Glogster could be used as a virtual science fair. It is hard for some students to be able to make a science fair project and even harder for teachers to plan a science fair. With Glogster your students can research a topic and make a Glogster with their research. They can have links to informative websites, pictures, or even videos. Then the students could present their Glogsters for a virtual Science Fair. It is a great way for students to explore science topics as well as work with technology.
Have you ever used Glogster in your classroom? Would you use Glogster for a virtual science fair? What types of things have you used Glogster for?

Here is a Glogster page that I did for a college course that would be an example of a virtual science project.  Light Project

It could also be used for a Social Studies project. Give each of your students an important person to research and have them create a glogster about them. Here is a Glogster I made about Elizabeth Stanton.

~Manda

Next Stop... Testing!

Hey everyone it is time for another "too much to talk about Tuesday"! The thing that is being talked about in our life right now is the end of the year testing. Everyone in the school is getting ready for the test. While administration is planning for the test and getting proctor training and things sorted out teachers are fitting in as many reviews as they can. What is your schools doing to prepare for end of the year testing? What types of reviews are you doing? Does anyone have a really great review activity they would like to share?
This is a short post for such a stressful topic but I want to hear from everyone and hear how everyone else is handing the end of the year stress?

~Manda

Probability Possibilities

 
Hey guys! We are both sorry for not posting last week but it was spring break here and it was a crazy week. Did anyone else have an insane spring "break"? We will be back this week so keep a look out for our daily post. To kick of the new week here is the new Maniac Math Monday!
Steph talked about her behavior system with Skittles recently and it has got me thinking about one of my favorite activities to do with Skittles. I have used Skittles when introducing and discussing Probability. Probability can be an abstract concept for students and it helps to have a hands on activity to discuss. In this activity each student would be given a certain amount of skittles (fun size bags work perfect for this) and they would sort them by color. As a class we would discuss how to calculate the probability of getting certain colors in a bag of skittles. I would have each student find the probability based on what they were given. Then as a class we would discuss it and find the probable percentages based on the class totals. It is fun to see what colors occurred the most and compare individual results to the classroom results. Students love this activity especially the part where they eat the skittles at the end! ;)

What activities have you done for Probability? What activities have you done with candy?




~Manda

Time and Time Again

Remember me telling you how all my kiddos were learning about time to some extent? If you missed it you can read about that in our Time post to see who is learning what this year.

Well, here's a question for you. What do you do when you realize you're 2 weeks away from the state standardized test and they know nothing? Yes my kiddos struggle, that's why they come to my class, but my 3rd grade babies are suppose to be dealing with elapsed time. They can't even remember how many hours are in a day. I was worried about my group so I met with one of the 3rd grade teachers at the school, and apparently mine aren't the only ones having a hard time with it.

I've been trying to review elapsed time with them like I was asked, but I realized they just weren't getting it...no wonder! During a whole group "quick review," I asked my 3rd graders how many minutes had passed if the start time was 2:50 P.M. and the end time was 3:20 P.M. None of them seemed to know where to start so I led them along by drawing a 'timeline' on the board and starting at 2:50 P.M. I asked them what time it would be if I added 10 minutes. After a moment or so I had one student yell out 2:60. My response was "Ok well yes that's close, but..." and another student says "Oh 2:75." So I decided we needed to back up for a minute and discuss clock/time basics really quickly. Only this "quick" discussion took the rest of our class time and I think only confused them more. These babies were so lost! I just didn't understand! So now I'm trying to get some stuff together to help them understand all the way from the basics to where they should be.

What would you do in this situation?

~Steph