Math

Math in 5th grade in Virginia is comprised mostly of adding depth and breadth to topics taught in the 4th grade curriculum. As such, my students and I were able to hone in on their prior knowledge and use that as a firm building block for learning in 5th grade.

My students use Journals to take notes, work through practice problems and as a reference. In a typical lesson, I teach a mini lesson, basic ideas behind the topic, then we use guided practice to work on the skills that I have taught in the mini lesson and then students are given independent practice assignments. While they are working on the independent practice, they discuss problems with each other, refer to their journal, or ask me questions. During this time, I circulate through the classroom, checking answers and discussing problems with students. This allows me to see where students have holes in their knowledge, and to work more closely with students. Each independent practice set has at least one or two problem solving questions on it. Those students who finish the work quickly and correctly, can move into more higher level problem solving. Therefore, I can continue to target those students who need the most assistance.

Below is a sample image from a student notebook.



I also like to use a lot of real world examples in my student work. One example of this is an activity I did during our graphing unit. Students teamed up and chose a city and created a line graph of both daily high and low temperatures. They compared the high and low temperatures and then compared their city to another team's city. Attached is a written version of this lesson: