A 400km Journey...

Come check out the model...

For maths on Thursday, we investigated a problem for a 400km journey to Wellington. The journey actually is approximately 300km, but we took an extra 100km of detours.

The problem was to find out fractions of the journey on a number line. So how far had we traveled to reach 1/2 of the way there? Or 3/4 and so on. Many of us needed materials to help us to see it, so we got out the tens place value blocks. 40 x 10 = 400 km. Each cube on the ten block = 1km. So 20 blocks was half of 40 blocks and it represented 200km. Half of 400km is 200km. And so on. Jack took some photos of our model.

40 km is 1/10 of 400 km

50 km is 1/8 of 400km

Hi Taylor!

We have reached halfway!

1/5 of 400km = 80km, so 2/5 = 160km

300km, 3/4 there.

The real journey is 296km...

Tracey's Amazing Park

Recently, our students have been designing parks for their maths learning and home links. They also had a go at working out the perimeter, area and volume of parts of the park. Many of the students created physical or digital models of their parks. Here is Tracey's outstanding example. She has even worked out the volume of her toilets.

Look at Tracey's 3D model and her measurements!

Here are some other fantastic parks on our student blogs:

• Maia's Park using Little Story
• Kyra's Everything Park
• Jacob's BLING $ BLING Park (Build with Chrome)
• Jacko's Fun Park 
• Matilda's Minecraft Park
• Elijah's Awesome Park 
• Ben's Minecraft Park

Designing a new swimming pool

The rich task - key tricky word - compound shape!

Today, we did self assessment of where we thought we were on our rich task progression. It was a tough rich task and us teachers had many debates on ways to work it out.

Room 6 assessed what we could do well and what our next steps in learning are. Click on the cluttered notes on our Padlet and you can scroll through which each student wrote.

Created with Padlet

1 square metre = 10 000 square centimetres

Today in maths, we proved that 1 square metre equals 10 000 square centimetres. It seemed unbelievable at first, but we proved it was true! Thank you to Kayla for inspiring the investigation when solving the perimeter and working out how to find the area for her bivvy.

Taylor, Maia and Julius were so excited that they created an iMovie about it and begged to continue the project during their lunchtime! I was so excited that I had to call Miss Hill in to check it out. She joined in and got us thinking about how big one hectare is.

One Square Metre from Kieren Moriarty on Vimeo.

Perimeter and Area of a Bivvy

Jaidyn's 3D bivvy model

For our Survivor Camp, we are going to make bivvies to sleep in. There is a back-up plan involving tents if they don't quite work out! On Monday, we tried measuring the perimeter and working out the area a bivvy would take up. We tackled this challenge with our learning buddies. Now we are working out how much the perimeter and area would be for a three person bivvy. I am very impressed by the thinking, measuring and problem solving using number strategies!

Now some students are designing 3D models of their bivvies.



Perimeter & Area of a Bivvy from Kieren Moriarty on Vimeo.

Sharing Money

Our maths topic is all about money. We will be using money as a context to learn how to use lots of different number strategies and build our number knowledge. It will be lots of fun!

We have started off with some sharing problems. It is has been great to see the students work out how to share the dollars and then break it down into sharing cents when it is needed to make the equal shares.

Kyra shows how to solve problem one!

Problem two

Zach has problem two sorted with the money equipment

Close to 100, Close to 1000

The boys are focused!

On Friday for maths we applied our place value knowledge by playing the game Close to 100. We played as a class and then with our learning buddies. Then we changed the game to closest to 1000. The slideshow below captures some of the Parkvale PRIDE we were putting into action. Especially E for Enjoyment!

Note: PRIDE stands for Personal Best, Respect and Responsibility, Integrity, Determination, Enjoyment.

Who won?

Mary vs. Jaidyn

Close to 100, Close to 1000 from Kieren Moriarty on Vimeo.

Mathletics 2013

Here are our five finalists from Room 16 for Mathletics 2013.

We were learning to use geometric designs to create a poster. It involved a lot of accurate measuring and drawing.

Create a Symmetrical Mathletics Poster:

We will know we can do this when:
 Used a ruler to accurately measure and draw all straight lines
 Our design is symmetrical (balanced) from the centre or rotated
 Any curved lines are drawn with a compass
 There are no free drawn lines
 Has Mathletics 2013 carefully drawn 
 Black and white only- (sharpie)
 All unneeded pencil lines are rubbed out. 

Joshua, Year 6

Tyrone, Year 5

Elijah, Year 5

Hannah, Year 6

Cameron, Year 5

Number Power Lines

For a starter in maths today, we tried playing Number Power Lines. It is a fun game and Room 16 enjoyed competing against each other. The idea is to make each power line match a given total using all the numbers that you are given. Our main strategy was guess and check. However the best learning was to come later...

Look I am on Level 8, Mum!

Play Time

Crighton certainly got ahead of me when we were playing the online game, as he raced through the levels. Then Henry worked out how to get on to Phase 2, using the password that you earn in Phase 1.

Creating

Following the game, the students had a go at designing their own algebra power line. For the first challenge, the students had to have three connected power lines that added to 16. You were not allowed to use a number more than once. Here is a collaborative Google drawing of some successful creations.

Look how different each pattern is to each other. Do all the lines add to 16?

The next challenge was to create four connected power lines that all add to 24. Again, not using any number more than once. Do the lines below all add to 24?

One of these patterns is not quite like the others.

What phase or level can you get up to in Algebra Power Line? Can you create your own Algebra Power Line pattern for others to work out?

Basic Facts

Room 16 have been practising our basic facts (number knowledge). We have had 10 tests. Each test has 25 questions. We put our daily results into a stem and leaf graph. At first we would do this for our raw scores out of 25. We would also find the middle score (the median). Then times the raw scores by 4 to get a percentage score. This works because 25 x 4 = 100.
See my example below for converting a score of 20 out 25 into a percentage.

We then worked out the mean (average) and the range, to go with the median (in percent). Here are our stem and leaf graphs for our percentage scores on days three and four.

Stem and Leaf Graphs from Days 3 and 4

The students used Google Spreadsheet to record their scores and create graphs (charts). Here is one I created for the class results.

The students achieved their highest mean score of 80% on day 6. They managed a mean (average) score of around 70% from day 3 on. I am very proud of them because the questions were not predictable. On day 9, you can see the mean score dropped to 64%. Some questions that many found difficult on this day involved place value or fractions. These are areas of number knowledge we will continue to work on. Our mean score rebounded back to 71% on day 10.

Note: Maths Dictionary is great website for helping you remember how to use the words in bold on this page.

Three Dice Multiplication Game

Room 16 love playing this multiplication game. It is very simple and involves addition, multiplication, number sense and written recording of equations in a simple table. Here is how to play:

Equipment:

• 3 dice
• Pencil and paper
• A buddy

Rules:

1. Draw a t-chart table with your name on one side and your buddy's on the other.
2. Take turns at throwing the three dice. When you throw the dice you use addition and then multiplication to get your score for that round. For example if I rolled 2, 6 and 4, I would go (2+4) x 6. That makes 6 x 6 = 36.
3. You keep a running total of your score. For example if I got 24 the next round, I would add 24 to 36 which gives me 60.
4. The first person to 200 is the winner. 
5. You could adapt this game in many ways, for example changing the target score.

Today, I played Nikitah J. I was in the lead early. Unfortunately, she finished the game stronger than me and deserved the ultimate victory. Hopefully, I will beat her next time. 

Update: Check out Nikitah's blog post (using Explain Everything)!

Nikitah's famous victory.

Explaining Subtraction Strategies

Subtraction Strategies from Kieren Moriarty on Vimeo.

Yesterday in Maths, I used the iPad app Explain Everything as we were going through some subtraction strategies. It is a great app and this was my first go - I can see immediately it could be used in much more wonderful ways than I have here. In our class, we can also use AirPlay and put what is happening on the iPad onto our class widescreen. It's great how you can pause and play back learning and this app suits it very much.

Anyway, hopefully there is something in the captured video that you can play back to help you understand and use subtraction strategies. Thank you to Inderpreet and Tyrone for their contributions on the last slide!

Amazing 3D Models!

Hannah's rectangular prism

Tyrone & Dylan's cubes

Olivia's square pyramid

Bree's octagonal prism

Nakita's tetrahedron

Hemani's cuboid

Henry's stellated dodecahedron

Cameron's 3D models (including a dodecahedron)

Joshua's stellated dodecahedra

Inderpreet's pentagonal prism

Here is Joshua's amazing video about welding his stellated dodecahedron on the weekend with his Dad! It is made of stainless steel.



The Birth of a Stellated Dodecahedron from Room16 Parkvale on Vimeo.

Tens in Hundreds

tens in hundreds from Kieren Moriarty on Vimeo.

Today, I downloaded Jing. It is a screencast or screen capture tool that the students of Room 16 already have on their netbooks. At this stage, the students mainly use it for capturing images but you can use it for creating video. I captured myself going through one of the NZ Maths Equipment Animations. It was fun. Then I found out I had to convert my video file so I could put it on the blog. Through a little digital problem solving I managed to do that, so now I will be able to help any students do the same!

This animation shows us about that essential place value knowledge: tens in hundreds.

1.5 kilometres

Today we worked at calculating the distance to Camp Kaitawa from Google Maps directions. To do this we had to convert between metres and kilometres. For example 600m and 2.4km. This has led us to investigate what that decimal point means and what the digit that comes after it means. Zeb, Henry and Crighton contributed to this ShowMe to help us understand 1.5 kilometres.

Maths Investigation

How would you solve this problem? What would you do first?

Update: This was a bit tough so I had a go at creating a ShowMe. It's not the best but we don't learn if we don't try!

The Restaurant

The Restaurant from Kieren Moriarty on Vimeo.

On Tuesday, Room 20 were lucky enough to work with Room 7 on their restaurant project. Natasha captured some of the action on the iPad and emailed it to me. She also recorded an MP3 to describe what is happening. I put it all together into a little video. Room 7 are so clever!

Drawing a 10cm Square

Drawing a 10cm Square from Kieren Moriarty on Vimeo.

WALT create mathematical patterns. Here is a small but very important step along the way: measuring accurately.

Can We Save The World?

Room 20 has been given a challenge to save the world from a hypothetical asteroid attack. It was given to us by Kevin Honeycutt.

Impact Zone

Mr M's IWB Sketch

World Savers (Groups)

This is the link to the Doomsday-1 Project. It has many resources to help us research information. We are trying to be as accurate as we can with our maths and science.

Wish us luck!

Number Patterns

Can you what is happening in this pattern? What is happening with the blue blocks? What is happening with the yellow blocks?

If the pattern continues, how many blue and yellow blocks would be in the next (fourth) pattern?