Summer Workbooks for Gifted

 Are you concerned about the summer academic slide and want your student to be working on a little bit of math each day to push their thinking?  I have created summer workbooks for gifted students.  The workbooks are designed to help students push their thinking and communication skills with a page a day during the summer months.

The workbook is designed for students to solve open ended problems in more than one way, find as many solutions as possible to push their thinking, understand algebraic equations and create their own story problems. 

One page can last up to half an hour of work and students cannot race through the packet as soon as possible if the parent asks for multiple solution pathways.  The workbook pages are very similar to the problems that we do on whiteboards in partners in SAGE, which is our gifted math program in the Issaquah School District.  

They can be done in partners at home, are great for teams of students who want to stretch their learning, and want to collaborate.

Here is the link to the summer workbook: Happy learning!

Integration of Math, Science, and Commerce: Paper Towel Testing

 Lately, my fourth graders have been put to work.  They have watched some incredibly entertaining commercials from Bounty to Brawny and begun to assess what makes a great paper towel. 

 "What is the task?" you ask.

Find the ultimate best paper towel brand.  Students have been using the scientific method to design their own experiments to prove mathematically that one paper towel brand is superior to the others.  

I have witnessed 10 year olds measuring water weight in grams, calculating averages, repeating trials, and drawing conclusions about absorbency.  Other students have placed heavy weights and objects on paper towels until they crashed down and broke to understand what role strength has in various brands.  

Finally, no paper towel evaluation would be complete without considering the cost per sheet for paper towels.

It appears that the school brand, Wausau, is not holding up on the strength and absorbency factors, but will it win due to cost? Stay tuned to find out the final conclusions from our paper towel stand off.

Counting Collections

 "Yes! I can't wait to count!" is what I have been hearing this week.  My kinders come into my room and get straight to work.  

"What is their task?" you ask.  Counting Collections in the answer.

I have a variety of jars and containers of objects.  Some are filled to the brim and others are half full.  The goal is to figure out how many objects there are all together.  

 

My students are counting in a variety of ways, tens, twenties, fifties, fives, etc.  They are learning to label, organize their thinking, check their work, and they are trying to figure out the total number of objects in all the jars combined.  

We are working into the thousands at this point and my little guys are determined to solve this counting collections mystery.  

I have learned a lot about my new friends.  Some already know the algorithm to carry and others are fabulous at manipulating numbers, re-combining them, and problem solving in different ways.  We are learning to compare answers, check with each other, check our own work, and try to understand someone else's thinking. 

It's fun to ask the kinders, "Look at M.'s work. How do you think they solved this problem?" And then they have to walk through someone else's steps and try to explain.  I am pretty sure they have never done this before, and watching them interact with each other in kind ways has been entertaining.  

I have a regular little counting business happening on my back carpet and I love it.  Tomorrow we will be over 1,100.  The look on the kids faces will be priceless. 

If you're interested in the counting collections lesson plans, you can click here.