Updates

A few important announcements:

We do not want to sound at all negative (that is a really bad photography pun), but many students still have not returned their pictures and/or payment for pictures. Please check around the house, and try to round up the pictures if you do not plan on buying.

On Wednesday the 2nd of December from 8-9:00 A.M. , there will be a Technology Coffee Talk for 5th grade parents held in room 102. If you are not a tech-savvy person, please don't be afraid to attend. These talks are intended for all levels of proficiency.

Progress reports should be coming home the during the first week of December. (Our goal is December the 2nd.)

The Chets Creek Giving Tree will be on display starting December 1st. The school is asking for donations of non-perishable food items and/or new toys that will be gifted to families in need.

We should be ready to take the NTP Quiz II by Wednesday. Student Sheet #11 (Clock Fractions) will play a very important role on this upcoming test. Students will be asked to show addition of fractions without common denominators on a clock model. For example, I might ask a student to add 1/4 + 1/3 on a clock. 1/4 would be shown as 3/12. and 1/3 would be shown as an additional 4/12, for an answer of 7/12. Student sheets 12 and 13 should be understood pretty well. The Roll Around the Clock game will need to be mastered as well.

Be sure that you are able to show 1/12, 1/6, 1/4, 1/3, 5/12, 1/2, 7/12, 2/3, 3/4, 5/6, and 11/12 on a clock face. Again, this is found on Student Sheet 11.

5th Grade Updates

We all hope that everyone had a great weekend! Take a look below to see information regarding upcoming school events.

A special note of thanks goes out to all of the big folks that helped with our trip to IMAX. The kids had a blast, and we really were thankful to have some help.

Also, please note that we were thrilled to see so many 5th grade families at Chik-fil-A night last week. A good cause, a good meal, and good conversation; it does not get any better than that!

A few important announcements:

Tuesday the 17th is PTA Family Night at CCE. Gourmet Grocery will provide dinner for all folks that purchased tickets. Dinner is from 6-7:00 P.M., and it will be followed by a Walk and Talk related to our Native American dioramas. The Walk and Talk will be from 7-8:00 P.M., and it will be hosted by 5th grade students and teachers.

Wednesday the 18th Early Dismissal starts at 2:00 P.M.. Please know your plan ;-}

On Saturday the 21st, Campus Clean Up is held from 9-11:00 A.M..

The Thanksgiving Holiday Break begins on Wednesday the 25th. Students will return to school on Monday the 30th.

Parents/guardians should also be getting access to the Oncourse online grading system beginning on Monday the 9th. CCE will have someone at our front counter in the lobby from November 9th-24th during the hours of 7:00 A.M. and 6:00 P.M. to distribute this information. Identification is required, and parents may only pickup their own log on information.

Chets Creek Elementary is honoring the memory of Mr. Rogers with the annual Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood Sweater Drive. The drive runs through November 28^th and accepts gently used sweaters, coats, blankets, pants, and shirts. Contributions may be dropped off in the lobby of the school. Contributions will be donated to St. Vincent’s Mobil Outreach, the Clara White Mission, and St. Mary’s Episcopal Church.

Riverdeep

Have you heard the buzz about Riverdeep?

During our math class, before and after school, students will have the opportunity to take turns using the computer to access this great resource.

The good news is that you can get to this site at home! Click here to visit the site. Students have their own username (firstnamelastname264) and password (4 digit number, birthmonthbirthday). Check it out and let me know what you think!

Fractions Are Insturctions to Divide

Just how do you go about solving a question like: What is 3/12 of 36 penguins? There seems to be an almost endless list of strategies that don't work well. However, there is one strategy that works VERY well.

In my class, I have the kids repeat, "Fractions are instructions to divide."

Almost all kids can remember this. Many do not, however, know what needs dividing up, or into how many groups. In the problem above, the 36 penguins need to be divided into 12 even groups, and that puts 3 penguins in each group. 3 would be a fine answer to the question, "What is 1/12 of 36 penguins?", but is not a good answer for 3/12. We figure out what the total is, in this case 36 and divide it into groups of 12. 36 divided by 12 equals 3. Students can figure out 1/12 equal 3, then 2/12 equals 6 and 3/12 equals 9.

The work also shows an array of 36 "penguins", and it would be quite correct to say that 3/12 could be understood as 3 out of every 12. This is a great model for small numbers, but I would not want to split up 3600 penguins into an array!

So, "Fractions are an instruction to divide."

Two Important Announcements

The My Grade Parent Portal (On-line Grade Book) will go live on Monday, November 9, 2009.

We have implemented an online grade book district wide this year called OnCourse. This web based system is a great tool for us to be able to engage parents in real time information about their child's performance. Each child's parent has a unique log on and password to be able to access their child's grades via the internet. For security reasons the log on information must be picked up in person. We will have someone at our front counter in the lobby from November 9-24 during the hours of 7:00 am and 6:00 pm to distribute this information. Identification is required and parents may only pickup their own log on information.



Chets Creek Elementary is honoring the memory of Mr. Rogers with the annual Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood Sweater Drive. The drive runs through November 28th and accepts gently used sweaters, coats, blankets, pants, and shirts. Contributions may be dropped off in the lobby of the school. Contributions will be donated to St. Vincent’s Mobil Outreach, the Clara White Mission, and St. Mary’s Episcopal Church.

Fraction/Percent Equivalents Strips

The goal of the Fraction/Percent Equivalents Strips was to match about 20 landmark fractions to their equivalent percents. The goal was not rely on memory, but to strategically think about the placement of these fractions. For example, most students immediately know that 1/2 = 50%. They can use that knowledge to "discover" that 1/4 = 25%, and then to find that 1/8 = 12.5%. Even the more difficult fractions like 1/6 become easy to place when there are landmark percents already present. 16 2/3 % is easy to place if 10% and 20% are already listed. Look in your child's EDC notebook where we glued these in. :)

Fraction Action

This story about fractional numbers is told from the bottom picture up.
In our EDC notebooks, we have been tracking equivalent fractions. We started on day 1 with the fraction 1/16. All students were able to understand that there were 16 pieces in the top row and if we were to shade one of those boxes it would equal 1/16 of the whole. On day 2, most students immediately realized that when we added another 16th, we created an area equal in size to the the 8ths row immediately below. When we got to 4/16, also 2/8, students saw that this was equal to 1/4 of the whole. It was at that point that students started to fill in percentages for the fractions that we had created. Most students knew that 1/4 = 25%, and they concluded that 1/8 was half as large so it must = 12.5%. A few students then realized that 1/16 must equal half of 12.5% or 6.25%. This knowledge of fractions and their equivalent percents will be a key component in adding, subtracting and comparing fractional pieces. Most students know several landmark percents like 25%, 50%, and 75%, and they can easily shade an object like a circle graph correctly with those amounts. Soon, students learn to represent other amounts like 30% (3/10) with accuracy based on their knowledge of the landmarks mentioned. Putting fractional amounts into percentages just makes life easier.

The next two pictures are the absolute most important concepts that we will cover in this unit. Students shade in portions of a 10 X 10 grid and report the percent (parts out of 100) that it took to cover the portion. One picture shows one fourth of a grid shaded (25 blocks and 25%). the shading is a bit "artistic" , and it probably led to the misconception about shading in 1/8 of the grid, which should be 12 1/2 blocks or 12.5% . The percent was listed correctly, but the grid does not have 12 1/2 blocks shaded. Still, I can tell that the idea of 1/8 being half of 1/4 is understood.
The top picture is most important for understanding fractions. All of the fractions listed are considered landmark (IMPORTANT) fractions in our number system. Understanding the percentages that go with each of these is a very critical conceptual step.

So, know the fraction. Be The fraction!
Know the percent. Be the percent!