Leaves revisited!

When we went on our leaf hunt earlier in the week I asked the children to make sure they collected "two or more" leaves. After we figured out that this meant at least two leaves and that they could collect as many as they wanted as long as they had two, we went out and collected our leaves! What a great "teachable moment" for math!

 

The second leaf that they collected was for another science activity. We already learned that scientists observe different things. Today we became scientists to learn more about our leaves. We measured them using several different non-standard units.

 

 

At one station the children had to measure their leaf's length using cubes.

 

 

 

At another station they measured whether their leaf would sink or float and then measured how many pennies it would take to sink their leaf.

 

At another station the children measured the area of their leaf using pennies.

 

 

The station that they seemed to enjoy the most was where they measured how far they could count before their leaf hit the floor when dropped. They did it over and over, trying to see if they could count a little faster!

 

 

This was a fun way to integrate science and math to finish up our fall leaves study. The children enjoyed using different units to describe their leaves. Then they had to draw a picture of their leaf like a scientist: using the "real" colors.

 

 

 Check out our little scientists!

 

Positively Delicious Place Value

For the past few months, we have been practicing place value. Each morning when we do our calendar, we look at what day in school it is and then decide how many "tens and ones" the number has. We've been practicing it several different ways. One way is counting straws. Each day a student adds a straw for the day in school and when we get to a "ten" number, we make a bundle. Then we count the bundles. We have also been using place value blocks on our smart board to make the number a different way. Each day we also play mystery number. Everyone closes their eyes while one child comes up front and chooses a number. Then the student chooses someone to tell what the number is and they not only have to figure out the missing number, but also have to tell us how many tens and ones the number has. In an effort to do something fun and different, I incorporated place value into our Munchie Math this week. The children were given honeycomb cereal and cheerios. First, I had them decide which should be the tens and which should be the ones. They all agreed that the honeycombs were bigger so they would obviously be the tens!

We had a few 5th grade helpers in class today and I let them call out numbers to the children. The children first had to write the number and then make it using their cereal. This was a fun and yummy way to practice place value!

 

 

Unbe-leaf-able leaves!

We have been learning all about fall and the changes that take place during this fun season. We have learned that some trees lose their leaves (deciduous) and other's leaves stay green all year (evergreen). We also learned that there are several different kinds of leaves with different shapes and sizes. We learned why some trees lose their leaves and why leaves change color in the fall.

Since we were finishing up our study of leaves, I decided to take the children out on a leaf hunt!

 

We walked around our block and found lots of different leaves that have already started to fall! The children would get so excited every time we'd find a big bunch of fallen leaves...especially when we found some cool colors!

 

After we collected our leaves, we came back to class and learned how scientists would study our leaves. We talked about how scientists love to look really closely at things and use their senses to find out about things. The children described what their leaves felt like, smelled like, looked like, and what sounds they could make with them. Then we learned how you can make really neat pictures by rubbing leaves.