My son came home with this project in the third grade and I thought it was brilliant! But then, I was reminded of his third grade teacher, Mrs. Durbin, and it made sense. She understands how to teach mathematics effectively and is always doing fun, hands-on activities and projects with her students. For this project, Mrs. Durbin was working with her students on the concept of area. Students created a design on inch graph paper and then indicated the total…
Making rectangular arrays with tiles is a great visual way to have students understand multiplication as repeated addition. And since we’re making arrays anyway, why not tie in square numbers. A square number is: 1) A number that can be expressed as the product of the same two numbers. 2) The product of a number multiplied by itself. When making rectangluar arrays, square nuumbers (1, 4, 9, 16…) always make a square. Besides, there are some very neat patterns that…
Super simple, and super fun. Great way to introduce bilateral/mirror symmetry. I usually do this with fourth graders but I think third graders could probably do it, too. CCSS: 4.G.3
Recent research points to a students’ early understanding of fractions as critical for later success in mathematics. We need to give our students plenty of hands-on experiences with fraction concepts along with meaningful dialogue about what they are learning. The photo above is an example of developing the idea that fractional parts of a whole unit need to be equal in size. If you feel the colors of the pom poms will get in the way of learning, supply students…
Here’s a great way to help establish a positive classroom environment…a Positive Remarks box. I made this box many, many years ago out of an old shoebox which I decorated with construction paper and stickers. I then told my fourth grade students to be on the lookout for positive things their classmates did. When they saw one, they could write it on a little slip of paper and put it in the Positive Remarks box. To make it easy for…