Its been an amazing year working with the same 4th graders each week for the 2011-2012 school year. In fall, we used metaphors to understand the similarities between math and language. We then applied these skills in Winter by learning about Project Wildlife and organizing and executing a fundraiser for them. In Spring we finished the year by discussing the lobes of our brain and how they relate to problem solving.
Fall began by asking: "What is a number?" and ended with: "What is a variable?" We used analogs to language to help understand mathematics by comparing different kinds of numbers (negative/positive, whole/fraction, etc) to parts of speech(verb, noun, adjective) and comparing the order of operations to the order of a sentence or the organization of a letter.
The Winter fundraiser for Project Wildlife began by learning statistics about local wildlife and what Project Wildlife does as an organization. Students calculated how many volunteers they need on a daily basis and how many animals they help and then applied these data in making posters and signs. The students then raised money, determined how much they could raise if each student donated certain amounts, estimated the amounts they raised, and then decided what in-kind donations to spend the money on.
Each major lobe of the brain was covered in Spring and paired with a problem-solving strategy for math. The temporal lobe and reading the problem and picking out key terms, the temporal lobe and visualizing the problem, the parietal lobe and estimation, and the frontal lobe and checking ones answers. The year ended with a field trip to UCSD where students got a tour of the campus and an interactive brain-lab from the neuro-grad outreach group. (The quote of the day from students was - "I got to touch real brains.")
Photos, videos, and new games/activities in the other pages to come soon!
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