What We're Learning this Week (January 2-6, 2012)

First off, 5th grade is awesome! Wednesday we had perfect attendance for the entire grade level, meaning we won a pizza party, which we are going to have Friday afternoon. After missing on Tuesday due to snow, we were right back in the grind of things Wednesday in Math. This week, we are reviewing all of the fraction concepts we learned before Christmas Break to get us back into full swing. Monday we reviewed finding equivalent fractions and simplifying fractions to simplest form. Wednesday, we used dominoes as manipulatives and practiced converting improper fractions to mixed numbers and vice versa. 

Thursday, we practiced adding fractions, whole numbers and fractions, and mixed numbers together. We worked in small groups and used our brains to sort cards based not just on the answers, but on the following additional criteria, causing us to really think and make sure we got the right answer: all of the digits of the sum were odd, the sum was a whole number, and the difference between the sum's numerator and denominator was 1.