Data Management Test Wednesday!

To wrap up our Data Management Unit before the holidays, we will be having a test on Wednesday. Students have found this unit to be fairly easy, with the exception of finding the mean, median and mode. In particular, at this grade level students are given problems in which they are given the mean and a few values, and have to find one or more missing values.

I often encourage students to "work backwards" when solving these problems. For example, to find the mean, we usually use 2 steps:

1. add up all the values
2. divide by the number of values

To work backwards then, I ask them to:

1. multiply the mean by the number of values
2. subtract the values given to find the missing one. If there is more than one, then any combination that adds to the amount is fine.

Here is an example of a problem:

Herny's scores on a series of tests were: 12, 14, 15, 16 and 10. His mean score is 13. He is missing one test. What did he get on the missing test?

1. multiply: 13 x 6 = 78
2. subtract: 78-12-14-15-16-10 = 11. The missing score is 11.

Another area that students sometimes have difficulty with is constructing good survey questions. I encourage students to:

1. make sure the question is very clear
2. give a few possible answers rather than leaving the options completely open
3. ensure that only one question is being asked. You cannot ask multiple questions in one survey question. You must write another question.

Here is the Blendpace unit for Data Management. If students can do all of this well, they will have no difficulty with the test.

Data Management Blendspace

The Angel Tree Needs our Help!

Once again at St. Anne our Angel Tree Project is ready to go for this Christmas Season. Every year, families at St. Anne are asked to select an Angel from our tree to purchase a gift for a child who may not otherwise get one. Please write a note in your child’s agenda to let their teacher know to send them to get an angel off the tree.  Their angel will be pink for girls, or blue for boys, and the age of the child will be written on the back. Please purchase a gift for the child and return it to the school by Wednesday, December 9th. Gifts will then be delivered to the students before the Christmas holiday. Thank you in advance for making a child’s Christmas one that they will not forget!

http://www.drawingsomeone.com/christmas-angel-drawing/

Self-Monitoring

In language we are beginning to learn about a new reading strategy called "Self-Monitoring" This simply means asking ourselves if we are understanding as we read, and if not, using strategies to correct ourselves so that we can understand. Today we developed an anchor chart, but here is a slideshow we will be going over in class to assist us in understanding what self-monitoring means:

Self Monitoring

As we go through this unit, we will be reading some excerpts from our religion text and Bibles, as well as continuing to read from our read aloud "Where the Red Fern Grows". One important skill related to self-monitoring is the ability to ask "thick" and "thin" questions. "Thick" questions are those that require some thinking about, or those for which there isn't really any answer in the text. "Thin" questions are those that are easily found by reading the text - for example, Who is the main character?

If you are reading at home with your child, encourage him/her to ask thick questions as they are reading and discuss those questions. Try to encourage your child to answer using specific examples directly from the text. Usually, when students are able to express their ideas orally, they are soon ready to write out those answers on paper. 

Data Management

We have started our next math unit which will focus on data management. In this unit we will be learning about creating, understanding and interpreting graphs, conducting surveys, finding mean, median and mode, and creating scatter plots. We will also be reviewing  about coordinate grids and plotting points on them, which is a skill most students have already learned.

A good portion of this unit will be taught using the lesson from the Ministry of Ontario document, "Data Management and Probability, Grade 4 -6 - A guide to Effective instruction in mathematics". It is available here, and is an excellent resource for anyone wanting to gain a deeper understanding of the level of depth the curriculum goes to in teaching these concepts, as well as the methodology that may be used.

Below is a Blendspace unit I assembled to assist students and parents in reviewing the material and developing understanding at home.