Week 6

What a beautiful weekend!  I hope you all enjoyed the cool fall weather and had some time to relax!  We had a couple football games on Saturday and I took my older two boys to River City Roundup today to help judge a robotics competition.  Speaking of robotics, I hope to take some teams to the UNO Robotics Showcase on February 22, 2014.  I’ll have more information on that later.

This week in EY we talked about the strategy of Guess and Check.  Students were given 10 film canisters (that was a lesson in itself as some of the kids had no idea what a film canister was! ;)) that had 1-10 pennies in them.  The goal was to arrange the canisters from lightest to heaviest without peaking in the canister.  After “guessing” the correct order, they “checked” by opening the canisters to see if they succeeded.

Click here to see a video of the Westbrook students.

During a second round, students could use a scale if they wanted.  As we completed additional rounds, students came up with different strategies in order to speed up their sorting time.  We even took the challenge “on the road” and invited principals to complete the activity.

Click here to watch Mr. Jagels.

We talked about other situations where guess and check is used.  When cooking, sometimes we need to guess on an ingredient (like salt) and then check the taste to see if more needs to be added.  We also talked about picking out clothes in the morning and checking to see how it looks in the mirror.  Can you think of other situations where guess and check is used?

We will be using the last few weeks of the quarter to create some math and vocabulary videos.  Here is one Dylan put together for some friends we’re connecting with in Wisconsin.   We will be exchanging math story problems and then afterwards “Skype”ing with them to check our answers.

Do you know the answer to Dylan’s problem?  Leave your answer and explanation in the comments section.  Also, let us know how you use strategies in your everyday life!

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