Ten Marks for Summer Math Practice

Ten Marks 

I hope everyone is enjoying the beginning of your summer vacation!

I wanted to share something I am doing with my daughter this summer. Ten Marks is a PAID website where your child can go for math practice over the summer. The goal of the summer program is to refresh the math topics covered this past year, and preview what’s to come next year – helping students build up their math skills for fall success.  Students are assigned 3-4 worksheets each week, each with 10 problems.  Each interactive worksheet has hints and video lessons, which help them refresh what they know, and learn what they don’t. The site also provides hints (up to 3 per question) if they get stuck on a problem. The basic plan is only $39 for a 3 month subscription.  I like it because Carleigh (my daughter) can do it when it works for us - before the beach, after, if she wakes up early. She doesn't need me to be there to do it. Ten Marks sends a weekly report on her progress which helps me gauge where her strengths and weaknesses are.  If you try it, let me know how you like it.


Have a great summer!!

Here is a video about the program from the Ten Marks website:

Twitterview with Tim and Moby from BrainPOP

On Thursday, during lunch and recess, all of my students were treated to an online interview with Tim and Moby from BrainPOP! If you are not familiar with BrainPOP (your child certainly is) click here to see the BrainPOP movie of the week. About a week before the big interview with Tim, the students wrote down questions they wanted to ask him. Then, during recess and lunch, students came to my room to be a part of the Twitterview. A Twitterview is an interview that takes place on the social network site, Twitter. We found out all kinds of things! We learned that Moby speaks Binary code (and then watched a movie on it), we learned about famous mathematicians, interesting science facts, and even Moby's favorite geometrical shape (it's a decohedron).You can see some of Tim and Moby's answers by clicking on the above link for the BrainPOP movie of the week and scrolling to the live Twitter feed. What a great experience for all of us!

Math Fraction Cookbooks!

Today in my AM and PM math classes, we shared a delicious project! The task of this mini-project was to find a favorite recipe with at least four fractions in it. Then, rewrite the recipe for half the amount of people it serves and then again for  3 times the amount of people the original recipe serves. For an added bonus, if the students made the recipe to serve a third of the people in the original recipe and brought it into class today, they were able to choose a homework pass or 5 points added to their extra credit ticket. Needless to say, we had a lot of fractional food in my room today! :) Everything was delicious and we all had a great time! The students enjoyed the food so much that they were asking for the recipes. Below are links to each cookbook. Enjoy and feel free to leave a comment!

AM Math Fraction Cookbook
PM Math Fraction Cookbook Part 1
Pm Math Fraction Cookbook Part 2

A digital collage by Smilebox

Nrich February Newsletter

I have written about the Nrich website before and all of its wonderful math resources. Today I am letting you know that the February Nrich newsletter is available online. If you want to enrich your child's math problem solving outside of the classroom, this is a great site to go to. Nrich is a British site, so they group their students a little differently. Select Key Stage 1 & 2 for 5th graders, but by all means try the later Key Stages if they need more of a challenge. Try it out and let me know how you liked it.

The Math and Science of Football

Before watching the BIG GAME on Sunday, why not learn something new about the sport. Science of NFL Football has wonderful videos about the science and math of football. I especially like the Pythagorean Theorem video. How about you? What was your favorite video? What did you learn that was new?  Don't forget to leave your first name and last initial only to stay safe on the web. Enjoy watching the Super Bowl and GO STEELERS!

Fraction Fun!

On Friday, the students in my math classes learned to play a new card game. Here are the rules:
1. Two to three players can play.
2. Each player gets four cards placed face down. Cards are placed as shown below.

3. Turn cards over.You now have two fractions in front of you.The top card is your numerator.Bottom card is your denominator.All face cards and Aces are worth 10.
4. Add the two fractions together.
5. Make sure to simplify your fraction.Make sure to make any improper fractions proper.
6. Compare your fraction to the other player.
7. The largest fraction wins.That player gets all of the cards that were just used. Put your winning cards off to the side.
8. Repeat until all the cards have been used in the deck.
9. Count how many cards you collected during the game.The person with the most cards wins.

You can also change up the game by doing the smallest fraction wins, or the fraction closest to 1 or any other benchmark number. Have fun playing it! I know we did!

The only problem is that this game still does not have a name. Any suggestions? Please leave a comment if you play the game or if you have an idea for a name of it. Don't forget to use only your first name and last initial.

Pick of the Week- Logic Puzzles

I couldn't decide between these great logic puzzles so for this week I have Picks instead of a pick.

The first Pick is Mastermind. Just like the classic game, see if you can guess the color pattern in 8 moves or less. Scroll down to the bottom of the page for all directions and a strategy guide.

The second Pick is called Daily Treasures. Each day a new treasure chest game is posted. Make sure to read the "fine print" clue above the treasure chests because they will tell you how many clues are true or false. Then you read the sentences under each chest. Remember, you can’t trust them because at least one will probably be lying — and on some days, they may ALL lie to you!

And the third Pick is a link to daily Ken Ken puzzles. If you have never tried one, make sure to click on the rules button once you select the size of the puzzle you want. You may want to start with a 4x4.

 Have fun!!