Math Minutes: Multiplication

Welcome back to 3rd grade! This year the 3rd grade team got together to start a new segment called Math Minutes. These will be short videos on what our students will be covering in math. Our hope is that these videos will help bridge the gap between home and school with our students and parents.

This week's video is on Multiplication and the ways to model and solve multiplication problems.

Core Math Idea:

Problem:

Solution options:

Here's Mrs. Wheeler to explain! You can watch the video HERE or watch below!

Be watching for more videos!

Capacity: Gallon Man and Gallon Gal

We've been studying capacity and we decided to celebrate with... glue and scissors!! It's creativity time, people!
Introducing... Gallon Man and Gallon Gal!!

It's a fun engaging learning activity that enables students to see how different units of capacity fit together.

Here's what you'll need:
4 sheets of paper (we used card stock I had on hand, but other classes used different colored construction paper)
paper plates (optional)

scissors
glue
crayons (Oh, yes my friends! We used CRAYONS!!)

1. Take first sheet of paper and label it GALLON. This is the Gallon Man's body/chest.

2. Take second sheet of paper and fold/cut it into even fourths. Label each fourth QUART. These will be connected to Gallon Man. Two are for the arms, two for the legs.

3. Take third sheet of paper and fold/cut it into even eighths. Label each eighth PINT. Two PINTS should be glued to each QUART- making the arms and legs longer.

4. Take fourth sheet of paper and fold/cut it into even sixteenths. Label each sixteenth CUP. Two CUPS should be glued onto each PINT- creating fingers and toes.

5. Students can decorate the paper plates to make faces for their Gallon Men or Gallon Gals. Plates are then stapled onto the complete body.

Here are our creations!

We had to much fun.. I mean... the kids learned so much by making these! We then created and answered capacity questions using our Gallon Men and Gallon Gals.
Great job, Soldiers!

Studying Perimeter

This post is a little late since we studies perimeter over a week ago. Oops.

Perimeter is the distance around a shape. Since we'd been studying polygons, this seemed like a fun way to review polygons and perimeter together.

Teams of students were given 12 pencils (not sharpened). It was originally supposed to be toothpicks, but I couldn't find the box I used last year.

Students were to create polygons using these rules:

1. Closed shape
2. No slanted/ diagonal lines
3. No re-dos
4. Perimeter HAS to be 12. No more, no less.

After students created their polygons, they had to be checked by me, then they were to be drawn on graph paper. The shape was then labeled with the name of the polygon, the perimeter, and the area.

Let the creativity begin!

 Basically the same shape, but done by 2 different groups. :) 

 I didn't get pictures of their graph paper, but I will say that they were surprised at how small their creations were when put on paper.

Everyone did a great job! I was impressed with how focus they stayed. 45 min of straight creating and documenting!

Awesome job, Soldiers!

Angles and Polygons

Just a quick update on what we have been working on in math. We have actually already tested over this unit, I just haven't posted about it yet!

Looking at polygons- number of sides and vertices match!

Looking at angles:

 Acute angle- an angle less than 90 degrees

 Obtuse angle- an angle greater than 90 degrees

 Right angle- an angle measuring 90 degrees at it's vertex. 

A ray- a line that has endpoint and goes on forever at the other end. In this picture, his elbow is the endpoint and this fingers go on forever.

107- Non-Standard units of measurement

Our objective in math is that students understand that, when measuring objects, you would need more smaller units of measurement than you would larger units.
Since larger units of measurement take up more space, you wouldn't need as many to measure an object. Here are our experiments.

We used two objects, a cube and a playing card. We noticed that the cube was smaller than the card. In fact, it took 4 cubes to equal one card.

 

We decided to use these units to measure our chart paper. First we made predictions. Most of my students expected the number of cards used to be more than the number of cubes. In fact, the quote was, "It's bigger so the number will be bigger too."

 It took 44 cubes to measure the chart paper. When we used the playing cards, we noticed a huge difference!

Only 9?! How is this possible? Well, that is the question we set out to answer, and here it is...

Smaller units take up less space, therefore it will take more of them to fill an area. Larger units take up more space, so not as many are needed to fill a space.

But we need more proof. And we need to make it memorable. Hmmmm..... We'll use our classmates!

Here we have out tallest and shortest classmates. Our activity was measuring the classroom, using our classmates. We made predictions as to which classmate would have the bigger number, and how many of each it would take to cross the classroom. And, we took video!

We started with our shortest laying at one side of the room...

By the end, he was a pro!

Now, time for the tallest. We made more observations and predictions. Since our smallest classmate didn't take up as much space at our tallest, we had to use more of him. So, our number for the tallest should be a smaller number. Let's see if we were right!

We were right! 

The smaller unit of measurement had the bigger number, and the larger unit had the smaller number! 

Dang, we're good!

But will this work again? Is the third time a charm? Well, to test our theory, we'll need another student. But where can we find another student who is even shorter? Kindergarten!

He's a cutie, isn't he?

He had no clue what was going on, but he was such a trooper!

We were right again! He took up less space, so we needed more of him! By the end, I lost count and had to watch the video again to count properly!

**Phew!**
It was a fun lesson, and I know mys students had fun learning this objective. I hope they understand it enough for the test tomorrow!

This afternoon we spent some time giving back to the community. Parkridge Medical Center is one of our community partners and we appreciate all that they do for the school and our students. Part of how we give back as a school is we make cards for the patients during the different seasons.  Today we made our Valentines Day cards!

What creativity! I know they will cheer up many people. Great job, Soldiers!