Math Assignments

During this week, we plan on transitioning students from multiplication strategies to multiplying using standard algorithm.  Prior to fifth grade, students have developed strategies to multiply including partial products, array models, and decomposing numbers.  This year, we teach students how to expand upon their strategies to begin using standard algorithm. View the following slide show to help your child understand how their strategy can be converted to standard algorithm. Multiplication Slide Show The following two videos will also help students understand standard algorithm when multiplying by one digit and by two digits.  Fifth grade standards state that students will multiply a four digit number by a two digit number using standard algorithm.

This week we began working on multiplying and dividing whole numbers by a power of ten.  Our number system is in BASE 10, which means every place value is a multiple of 10.  10 ones make 1 ten, 10 tens makes 1 hundred, 10 hundreds makes 1 one thousand...etc. As students multiply and divide by a power of ten, they begin to understand place value. For background, please watch this Khan Academy video. This video also illustrates powers of ten.

This week we began exploring Order of Operations .  Students are learning that there is an ORDER to solving multiple step equations. Students played a game to help them understand order of operations better.  They rolled 4 dice and then had to try to make an equation equal a target answer.  We started with the answer of 12.  Here is an image of some work we did on the board. Our class target was 12.  We rolled a 4, 5, 8, 9.  Students gave suggestions on how to combine these numbers with various operations to reach the target of 12.  As you can see from examples, we did not meet the target with these numbers. Students were able to meet the target in their groups.  We had many creative uses of parenthesis!  Students can play this game at home to help strengthen their math skills.  Any target can be created and students can make up numbers if they do not have dice at home. We continued practicing solving equations using PEM...