Summer SAVY 2019: Session 3, Day 1 – The One to Beat (Rising 3rd/4th)

Posted by hallep on Monday, June 24, 2019 in Grade 3, Grade 4, SAVY.

It is with great enthusiasm that I tell you how excited I was for our first day together!  In this class, we are using world records to learn about Algebra with an emphasis on relationships.  We are focusing on analyzing change by using graphs, tables, and verbal situations.  We will continue to learn about Algebra as a set of concepts tied to the representation of relationships through words, charts, and graphs.

In our morning session, the students were able to give me their own definition of the term variable. We were able to extend their mathematical thinking of the term as we included a second definition of variable as a quantity that varies or changes.  The students were able to identify variables in a variety of “Wacky World Record Situations” and discuss how the variables changed in relation to one another.  I was truly impressed at how much the students were able to recognize the relationships between the variables as well as identify some of the less-obvious variables.  In our second activity, we used “NBA Star Stats” to interpret some information from a graph.  Most of the students seemed to struggle with interpreting the graph due to the idea that it did not have a scale. This made it a little more difficult to identify each player.  Nevertheless, students persevered through the task and were able to discuss their findings.

After lunch, we attempted to break a world record by pushing an orange with our nose.  The students obtained a wealth of knowledge and a multitude of skills while they were also having fun! Three graphs were displayed that placed an emphasis on how the structure of a line could be used to interpret various types of lines graphs.  During the orange nose push activity, the students chose one of four roles: orange pusher, timekeeper, distance marker, and recorder.  We were able to learn how to convert inches into feet while we were measuring each distance.  One student was even able to push the orange as far as 118 feet over a 60 second time frame.  We returned to the classroom to take the data and display it in the form of a line graph. I emphasized to the students the important parts associated with a line graph such as title, scale, and labels for the x-axis and y-axis.  The students were very creative in their displays and I will keep these items for display during our open house ceremony.

Since we are learning about world records, I would like to start a world record of our own.  The students shared with me their favorite series of books to read.  I have challenged each student to record the number of pages they are reading each day.  I have set a class of goal of reading 10,000 pages by the end of our last class (June 28^th, 2019).  We will track the number of pages read each day as we attempt to meet our goal.

Please print the personal reading log that has been created so that we can keep a record of the class progress towards our goal! We will share our progress towards our goals each morning.  I look forward to reaching our goals and learning more about mathematical relationships!

Thank you so much!!

D. Polk