New gr.4 Math Homework: Monday, May 14th to Tuesday, May 22nd 2018

Happy Monday students and parents!

-Don't forget that this Friday, May 18th is a P.D. day. There is no school for students.
-Monday, May 21st is Victoria Day and there is no school for students and for most working adults!

Homework: a hard copy of Math pages (Multiplication and Division) were handed out today. There are 6 pages, two sided, for a total of 12 pages in all. If you want a break this coming weekend, complete and hand in by Tuesday. If you want to do some of this work on the weekend, you are welcome to hand it in on Tuesday, the 22nd.

Remember, if you don't understand, try your best to SOLVE IT ON YOUR OWN AND WRITE WHAT YOU THINK! Often, if not completely correct, you'll show some understanding. THEN, go and ask a parent to double-check your work to ensure you DO understand. Mr Kennedy is at school to help too! If it's too tricky, you've tried hard and still can't figure it out, he will explain it to you!

Good luck! M.K.

Math Homework: May 2nd to May 11th

Hello everyone. Please complete Math at home working in the program: "Mathletics". Simply go to your student portal or click HERE LINK to access Mathletics:

You'll need to sign-in using your first.lastname@ocsbstudent.ca google account. You should be doing 15 to 30 minutes on 3 to 4 evenings a week. Do the Number Sense Division and Patterning and Algebra activities. You can do some on the weekend too if you wish. If you don't understand, click on the links that help you! If you are not done previously assigned activities, please complete them too. A few students have asked for a hard copy so I have provided them with one. If you also require a hard copy, let me know and I'll print it out for your son/daughter. The worksheets are a bit different from the Mathletic website activities. When you find it challenging, ask a parent to help you out, you can also ask a sibling or friend and of course, you can ask me here at school! Good luck! M.K. 

Homework this Week: April 18-23

Good afternoon. My apologies, I did not post this as I had mentioned to students yesterday. This week, Math homework is simple. Do 1 or 2 Math minutes each night. Two sheets of Math Minute were handed out today (for a total of 4 pages). Do it on the weekend as well please. It only takes 5 minutes! Ask you son/daughter to show you how it works. Be sure to time 90 seconds. As opposed to the regular 1 minute suggested, we've been doing it for 90 seconds each time instead. Students are to correct their own... or if you prefer, correct it with them.

Remember that students are to use good strategies to 'crunch numbers' allowing them to retain the learning as opposed to only learning it by memory.

In other news:
Thank you to Gabrielle and Brooklyn for bringing in healthy treats yesterday. Here's what it looked like:

Many fruit pieces had already been eaten before I took this photo! :-)

Thank you Brooklyn for this information on health benefits of the food you brought in!

Tasty Tuesday (today was Tasty Wednesday)

Hello everyone! We had another successful Tasty 'Wednesday' today! Thank you to Alex, Austin and their parents for contributing to our healthy snack. Take a look at the colours! Wow! Also, take a minute to read the paragraphs written by Alex about the wonderful nutrients and benefits of eating healthy! Check it out:

Week of March 27th-29th

Hello parents and gr 4 students!

This week for homework, take 10-15 minutes to go over the cost of items in the kitchen. Discuss with Mom or Dad. Also discuss the price paid for our whole class to enjoy a very generous Tasty Tuesday snack. Our first Tasty Tuesday was today and it consisted of:

a bag of apples ($6.99), 2 cut up red and yellow sweet peppers ($2.50), one container of hummous from Costco ($3.00) and one bag of pita bread from costco ($2.50).  How much did it cost in total?
If two of you buy about the same amount of food and it cost about the same and you divide the total with a classmate, how much will it cost you?

Two students signed up for doing Tasty Tuesday next week! Today was great, I'm excited to see what happens next week... next week Tasty Tuesday will actually be on WEDNESDAY, April 4th, as there is no school on Monday and it will give these two students one school evening to prepare for the next day. :-)

Oooops! Can you catch my mistake in my older post?

I fixed it... check it out:

Daily Use of Vertical Learning Walls!

In Math, working standing up, with a partner using Math strategies is a VERY effective way to develop Math skills and proficiency for now and for the future!

Math Homework: March 19th to 23rd

Multiplication Challenge!

Your challenge this week is to hand in a regular size paper with all of the following on it:

1. Your name

2. Four multiplications that are easy for you and the explanation why

3. Four multiplications that are tricky for you and your reason why

4. Look at the picture below (taken from our classroom), what strategies are helpful to you? Write them down and explain why. What other strategy or strategies do you use that work well for you. Write them down and explain why.

5. Write ONE multiplication challenge for other students to try this Friday.

Ask Mom, Dad, a brother, sister or friend to help you if you don't understand. You can ask me, Mr Kennedy, in class too! You shouldn't need more than 20 minutes on three separate nights this week. 

Good luck!

Homework March 6th-9th

On 2 separate evenings this week, for 20 minutes each time.

Your homework this week is to show Mom or Dad at least two different strategies on how to solve the following multiplications (4's and 7's):

4x7     4x2     5x4      8x4       9x4     4x10      4x11

7x3     5x7     7x6     8x7     9x7     10x7    

If they are too easy for you, try all of the above but x14 instead of x4  and try x17 instead of x7

example: 4x17=  (4x7) + (4x10) = 28+40 = 68

If they are too difficult, try all of the above but instead of x4, do x2, then do x2 again.

For x7, break it down and do x2 and x3 then add to two together. 

Example: 4x7 = (2x7) + (2x7) = 14+14 = 28

Show your work on a separate piece of paper and bring it to school with your name on it, on Friday. :-)  M.K. 

Good Friends, Strong Friendships!

Our gr.4 class had an excellent discussion about friendship. Take a look below. We all agreed that friendships are not exclusive to two people. We need many friends and need to include others in our games! Having one 'best' friend is great but having 'best' friends is better! Take a look at the initials next to each statement and you'll know who contributed each comment. Well done students!

New Math Homework: Fri. Feb.23rd to Friday, March 2nd

Good afternoon! We are back on track with our weekly Math homework. My expectation is for students to do Math homework on 3 separate evenings for about 20 minutes. If you do more, great! Parents: if you sit with your child and work with them, it will help them tremendously! One of our parents requested hard copies so I will do that for this week. Perhaps I will try and send them weekly. Hard copies are due on Friday. I will take it up again with them at that time.

Tasks to do:
1. Parents, would you mind reviewing/discussing the strategies used in class with your child. See photo below.

2.Complete the 2 sheets (4 pages) of Math homework sent Monday.

3. Students work on Mathletics. Use the following link for your child to access this FREE and EXCELLENT Math resource (student must be signed in with their firstname.lastname@ocsbstudent.ca account):  Mathletics LINK CLICK HERE

Math Home Practice: Jan.29th to Feb.2nd

Please do 20 minutes of Math homework 2 or 3 evenings this week.

Review with Mom or Dad this problem we worked on in class today:

Let's pretend our field trip is in 3 days. Approximately how many hours away might it be? Explain your answer.
Here is a LEVEL 4 answer found in class today.

We discussed as well in class how if we figured out 3 days and we're currently lunch time, we might want to subtract 2 or 3 hours which would bring our total closer to 68 or 69 hours.

Other problem to try by yourself first and then with a parent at home:
The summer holiday starts in about 23 weeks. Describe how far away that is using a different unit (like months, hours). Challenge: Show your work using years (you'll need to use a fraction).

Finally, if you have time, keep learning about Math on the posters below, created by students of our classroom.

What Students Have Learned in Math So Far, What next?

Here's what we've worked on every day since September in Math:
(for better viewing, please click here)

Excellent Resources for Parents Helping their Child do Math at Home

Many Great Math Resources and Links: Click Here

Parents: here is a helpful video to help your child succeed: click here

Math Homework: Jan.22nd to 25th

Hi! Considering there is a PD day for students this Friday, if you could do 20 minutes of Math with your child on two separate nights this week, that would be great!

This week's homework:

Students have worked hard at creating excellent posters on topics/concepts/vocabulary we are learning about this year. I started with 7 Math Posters and will post more in the coming weeks. If your child understands a concept very well, move on to the next. Place Value is a good place to start if he/she struggles with that... and especially considering that in gr.4, decimals up to hundredths are learned.

Here is the link: Math Posters by Students Click Here

What else is new? In order to help meet our goals of improving student's Math skills, in junior grades we are doing Math Talks. Here is one of the books we are using to meet our goals. If you wish to borrow it, I can send lend you my copy for one evening. Good luck!

Double 36

Way to go Sophia, Maddie and Kayleigh! Here's how they used manipulatives to show double 36... in two different ways! Can you figure out how they did it? The image should be rotated a quarter turn clockwise. Oh, and there is a little mistake, can you see what it is?

Math Homework: Jan. 8th to 12th

Happy New 2018 Year!

Math: please take the time to sit with your child and do about 15-20 minutes two or three evenings this week. Other option is to have them do it on their own and then show you the work.

We've been doing "Number Talks" in class two to three times a week since early december. Looking at different strategies to solving computation problems helps students develop basic skills required for all Math and progressing towards more complex problems.

Ask your child to show you at least two different strategies to solve this:

43 - 9

Most will do it the traditional way, lining up the numbers and carrying:   

     43
   -   9
                     This strategy doesn't necessarily help the child understand.

Another strategy can be   43 - 10 (added 1 to make it friendlier) = 33 (add 1) = 34

Or, use a number line:    _____________ 34_+9___43_________________
                                             10     20     30     40     50

Or, use the decreasing number line:   ____  43 -9_34_______________________
                                                               50       40      30      20

Or, try 39 - 9 = 30 then add the 4 you took out = 34

Allow your child to think of the different strategies and ones they remember from class. Now, try these with them:

61 - 8                          71 - 39                       84 - 59                   247 - 98

Challenge them to more tricky ones! Have fun! M.K.