The Last Post of 2008!

Today, as I suspected, it was incredibly hard to stay focused. The
last day of math class for 2008. We played our stand up/sit down
game... with our multiplication facts! (And we need some more
practice!!!)

Yesterday we processed our days with the computers and Excel and the
kids practiced some multiplying and dividing decimal problems.

As a heads up, we'll come back from break, pick up where we left off
with decimals and soon thereafter it will be test time. If the spirit
so moves you, you can totally practice some decimal work over the
break! Check out: http://www.cfsnc.org/units/MS/math/summer/

See you in 2009!

Warm up

Wrapping up our Excel work

I just can't tell you how cool it has been to watch your children lay with and in Excel...  They've definitely got some of the basics down, which of course is just scratching the surface of what Excel can really do!

Today we talked about computing percent and finding the grand total.  And we printed out all of their work.  Who knows... maybe we'll find ourselves back in touch with these computers soon... :)  NO homework!

Excel Excitement!

Today we rocked and rolled some more with Excel up in the Mac Lab (as promised).  We reviewed using the SUM formula, learned more about the AVERAGE formula and the kids began creating a spreadsheet that we're going to use tomorrow to compute tax and tip.  Onward! (No homework.)

EXCEL!!!

Today we used the Mobile Mac Lab... for the first time! Yippee!

After washing our hands, handed out the computers, logged on, and hit up Excel.  Today was mainly an introductory tutorial to Excel... learning how to get around, what a cell is, and basic formulas.  For data, we created a table of our ages and found the sum of our ages and the average age of the class (throwing my age in there threw things off a bit ;).  We had so much fun, we're going to keep at it next week!

No homework!

Making computers do some work!

After our warm up (which took some time :)) we played around with using Excel to help us compute some of our sales tax and discounts.  We're going to do more of this tomorrow in class with the Mac Lab.  The kids do have some homework, though--6 decimal division problems--and the answers are already posted below. :)

HW

#s 1-6 HW Answers

1. 3.75
2. 1.96
3. 4.02
4. 27.5
5. 0.132
6. 0.411

HW

Warm up

Dividing Decimals...

Today after our warm up and checking homework, we took some quick notes on dividing decimals (see pics below).  The kids DO have homework--three problems that were written up on the board and are posted below. :)  Answers to those problems have also been posted... but I want to see their work!

HW Answers

(see the picture below)

1) 243

2) 8.1

3) 0.5

Ex 1-2

Ex 3-4

HW

Warm up

Almost forgot!

I almost forgot!

Today was our first day using a seating chart.  I told/asked the kids about this yesterday and told them that I had been considering it for sometime now and that I was committed to sitting down and completing one.  And I have to tell you... in the first 3 minutes of class I noticed a difference.  Whoohoo!  This is a pseudo-action research project for me... so things make continue to shift around, but as of right now, things seem pretty settled and the seats seem to be working.

Sales Tax and Tipping

One of the easiest (and most applicable) conversations to have when learning more about multiplying decimals is about sales tax and tipping.  Today, we (for real) did just that.  (I say for real because we actually took notes on it today... not just mentioned it in the abstract.)  You'll see pictures of the notes below.

Using the standard 7% sales tax, and a conversation about "socially acceptable" tipping, your children should now be armed to compute an entire dinner check in a snap!  (With or without a calculator!)

In addition to the notes, your children have homework -- eight problems on solely multiplying decimals.  I've posted the answers here below... they can get quite tricky and I want them to have something to check their work with!

1. 106.26

2. 0.3095

3. 596.44

4. 0.08536

5. 3.4595

6. 0.5364

7. 0.3984

8. 118.72

Warm up

Sales tax

Tipping

Oh where, oh where has Matthew been?

You may (or may not!) have been wondering about my whereabouts considering my lack of posting on the blog. :)

Last week was an incredibly full week--just beside myself busy.  You all know how that feels!

And to add to the mayhem, I was away at the North Carolina Educational Technology Conference in Greensboro on Wednesday and Thursday.  I cannot express to you what an amazing conference this is... you'll have to check out their website and read some of the session descriptions.  This trimester I am actually considered as part of the "admin" staff in the middle school--and my focus is technology.  I am blessed with the gift of time in the afternoons to learn about and offer workshops for other middle school staff members on technology.  This conference was a way for me to keep my thumb on the pulse of what's happening.  The newest buzz in the educational technology world?  GoogleDocs. :)  You should check it out if you've got some time. 

Anyways, last week your children worked heavily on place value of decimals, adding & subtracting decimals, and multiplying decimals.  The latter they actually worked on with Lisa Ray, parent of a CFS students, while I was at the conference.  Lisa helped introduce the kids to sales tax and tipping which has launched us into a conversation about percentages and world currencies.  Exciting stuff!

This week will see a move to dividing decimals... and onto our test next week before break on all of the decimal stuff we've done.

Whew!  Enjoy and have a lovely evening!

Warm up

Reminder!

HE

Warm up

Accurate vs Precise

The rule to rounding

Whole numbers and tenths

Rounding Practice Problems

Warm up

Can you make change?