Welcome to Semester 2 week 5!
Circle Quiz on Wednesday
- Well, it turns out that Wednesday 3/14 is International Pi Day! So it seemed a fortuitous day to locate our replacement circle quiz. As it turns out, March 14th is also Albert Einstein's birthday! So in math we will start with our quiz and then we will have a little artistic fun with circles for math time.
Math Reviews and Homework
- Just a reminder that on Mondays we do the math review together and identify he strategies your child should be practicing throughout the week. Then on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday nights, your child has a homework assignment to complete their next math review. It is due the next day and we will go over answers and strategies then. On Fridays there is a quiz that covers all the same strategies and concepts, so your child has had many opportunities to learn how to do it correctly. There are usually no surprises for them on Fridays about what is on the quiz: they've been practicing all week.
- While we're on the topic of homework, I will always stamp your child's planner on the day their homework was due if it is complete. If it is incomplete, I won't stamp it (but they can bring it in later to have it stamped when they complete it). So on most weeks by Friday, your child should have four stamps in the math boxes of their planner for Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday.
- Homework assignments are listed on my website http://www.mrmacnevin.com. I have been trying to keep that updated and, when possible, I am putting answers to problems in the DETAILS section of the assignment. Students must show all their work in order for me to stamp their homework because it's just too easy to copy down the answers and say, "see, I did it!"
And the topic of the now in math?
- In math right now we are extending "nets" to surface area and pyramids. Last week we started talking about rectangular prisms and nets and on Friday we began using that to find surface area of some three dimensional shapes. Today we continued with that practice for review and we extended it to talk about finding the surface area of pyramids. Then later this week we will move into calculating the volume of rectangular prisms and triangular prisms.
- I've made a short short 5-min ShowMe video about what we've been up to with nets and surface area at this [link]. The quality isn't great and the drawings are... well... they're drawings. But I thought it might give you a sense about what your children are working on. It's highly visual, and I've been surprised at just how difficult it can be sometimes to talk about surface area with children. If your child is struggling with the concept, drawing a flat 2D "net" and then identifying the individual faces from the shape on that net can help them figure out the surface area.
Sincerely,
Brian MacNevin
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