Summer SAVY Session 4, Day 5, Fractions at Work
Day 5: Happy Friday! What a great week learning about fractions and all their many elements. Today, we really challenged ourselves with new algorithms for multiplying and dividing fractions. Mostly, we worked with recipes that our book characters, Tori and Jordan, found in the attic; we scaled them up or down based on how many servings we needed.
Mathematicians felt a LOT of success with this morning’s Three Act Math from GFletchy! This time, we used fractions to think proportionally and balance a scale of nectarine with wooden cubes. By the end of this task, all students had unknowingly multiplied and divided fractions! We celebrated what our brains can do when we put fractions to work by trying new problems with the aforementioned recipes.
By the middle of the day, mathematicians all experienced some challenges with these new and difficult tasks. This led us to discuss FAILs, or First Attempts In Learning 😊 We reflected on how to use number sense and fraction sense to get started when we don’t know the answer right away, a tough but excellent lesson! Their problem-solving skills were growing and growing!
In the afternoon, we supported our younger friends by taking the Animal Adaptations course. These rising first and second-grade scientists needed viewers for their presentations; our mathematicians rose to the challenge. They collected data from the total presented animal population about specific questions (Ex: How many animals can live in water?) to present in fractions.
Thank you for sharing these curious minds with us this week!
Warmly,
Ms. Whiting and Mr. Yiwei