A week full of assessment!!!

September 22 ~ 26

This week my students will be taking ThinkLink, Discovery Ed, in three subject areas: ELA, Math, and Science.  Being that I also teach Computers, I take on the responsibility to administer Discovery Ed.  This week also starts our journey into fractions, at least the basics and possibly ending the week adding and subtracting mixed numbers.  Below is my testing schedule for this week.

Monday ~ ELA.

I have 2 - 50 minute periods, or block, to incorporate Math and Computers. It takes several students the entire block to finish ELA.  I hope to squeeze in some kind of pretest over fractions.  I want to see what skills students have over the basics:  adding and subtracting with common denominator, change improper fraction to mixed number and vice versa.  I don't expect to get much else accomplished.

Tuesday ~ Math

Thankfully, the math portion does not take as long as ELA.  I will be able to do some math today but I doubt I will have a full 50 minute period.  I plan to keep things simple, I will go over converting improper fraction to mixed number and vice versa.

I found this journal entry on Pinterest(what did I do before Pinterest came into my life?  I don't even want to think about those days.  lol).  I want to do something like that today with students.

Wednesday ~ No Discovery Ed today

I will have a visitor with me on this day to see how I run my classroom.  Because of that I decided that students will take a break from Discovery Ed.  The results of the pretest will determine more of what I will be going over on this day and the rest of the week.  At this point, I am certain that I will be adding and subtracting fractions.

I had never heard of the "Butterfly Method" until I started searching around the internet.  But I think I will try it with the kiddos this year and see how it goes over.  Here is a picture of it.

I'm not sure how I feel about the butterfly method.  I've always preach to find the LCM to find the common denominator so there is less simplifying to do.  This method finds just a common denominator by multiplying the denominators together.  I still think I'm going to use this method and see how the kids like it.

Here is what my journal entry will look like.

In addition to the journal entry, I will give students 2 or 3 problems to work in pairs.

I don't make many assignments out of the book, but with this lesson it is possible.  I will assign students Pg. 15 4 - 9, 13, 14.  I am proud of myself for sticking to the RISE method this year.  I tried RICE last year, and it was an epic fail for me.  I just was not able to stick to it, but with RISE I am doing much better.  My students now know that all word problems are to be worked using the RISE method.  13 and 14 are RISE problems.  If you would like to know more about RISE let me know.  Its a great problem solving technique that Melanie from South Lincoln came up with.  It's a lot like RICE, but just a little different.  I really like it!!!

I also found a video, you know how I love videos.  I love Mario too.  I couldn't resist sharing it with y'all.

Thursday ~ Science Discovery Ed

Thursday is Science Day!!  The last day of the Discovery Ed testing!  This test usually only takes one 50 minutes class period.  Today I will cover adding mixed numbers.

I found this worksheet that I like.  Although, I wish there were some problems with unlike denominators, but I like the pictorial representation of the mixed numbers.

My assignment for this day is coming out of an old math book that we used to use.  I really dislike how our book only has one page of adding and subtracting fractions, much less adding and subtracting mixed numbers.  I kept a classroom set of the old math book that we use to use.  I will jot some problems on a piece of paper, copy it, and give to the students for homework.  When it comes to fractions, I end up writing their worksheets by hand instead of typing it up.  Typing fractions is more work than its worth in my book.

Friday ~ Quiz Day

The quiz for this week will cover writing improper fractions as mixed number, mixed numbers as improper fractions, adding and subtracting fractions, and adding mixed numbers.

I hope you have a great week.  Please let me know if there is anything I can help you with!!!