Ratios, Fractions, Equivalent Fractions and Percents!

Happy Wednesday!

This morning in Math we started learning about ratios (les rapports). Ratios are a comparison of quantities. We use ratios almost every day, especially in the kitchen! We see ratios when we mix frozen orange juice, cook rice and bake a cake! Specific ratios ensure of juice won't be watered down, our rice won't be too mushy and
our cake won't be dry!

And, because there's no better way to kick off a new Math concept than with a sugary cereal treat, we opened up a box of Froot Loops to practice our ratio writing skills!

We each got 20 Froot Loops and had to answer specific questions comparing one colour of "Loop" to another. Mme Careen tried to trick us by asking us to write a ratio of how many BLUE Froot Loops we had.
Silly Mme! There is no such thing as blue Froot Loops! :)

After we wrote out all of our ratios, we were challenged to find the percentage of each colour represented in our group of 20 Froot Loops. Because percents are fractions over 100 (and not over 20 like the fractions we had written), we had a bit of Math thinking to do!

Ex: Mme Careen had 4 yellow Froot Loops. What percentage of Froot Loops are yellow?

The ratio of yellow Froot Loops to ALL of the Froot Loops is 4 : 20. 

In order to find the percentage of yellow Froot Loops, we need to find an equivalent ratio (fraction) over 100. 

4 : 20  =  20 : 100. 

(We found the equivalent ratio by multiplying by 5). 

This means that 20% of the Froot Loops are yellow!

In addition to learning about ratios, this activity was also getting us ready to review and tackle fractions and equivalent fractions next week! Who knew there was so much Math hiding in a box of Froot Loops?!

Have a great afternoon! :)

**********

P.S. Feeling a little bit lost and/or unsure about all of this fraction/equivalent fraction/percents stuff?
These two videos can help!

Math Antics Percent Video
(We've seen this video before, but it's a great review!)

Math Antics Percent and Equivalent Fractions
(We'll be watching this video in class early next week, but watching it ahead of time certainly won't hurt!)

"What a Wonderful World" (Writer's Workshop Day 4)

The week has flown by and the final day of our Writing Residency with Ms. Sandy is here.

We had a lot to accomplish today and got started right away!

We started our morning with our Community Circle. This morning we shared something we were thankful for from our week together. Many of us were thankful for the fact that Ms. Sandy came all the way from Arizona to help us learn! We were also thankful for learning more about technical writing and working together in our groups.

After our Community Circle, we started our learning by collaborating to create the writing criteria for our "Math Mobiles" writing assignment. We chunked the criteria into three sections: "Introduction," "Body" and "Closure." We reviewed what needs to be included in each section so that our writing is clear and complete.

After that, it was time for us to learn about the editing process.

Today, we all learned the editing marks that editors use when reviewing written texts. We also reviewed the Editing Checklist and learned that editing our work is OUR job - not the teacher's! We can collaborate with our team and our peers to ensure things like spelling, punctuation and other conventions (paragraph and sentence structure, etc) have all been corrected before sitting down with a teacher for the final edit and review.

To be respect our readers, it is important that our writing is legible, well-organized and error-free.

Equipped with all of this great editing knowledge, it was time to meet up with our teams to keep on working on our writing. There were so much great discussions amongst the teams! We all worked very hard and most teams were able to finish their introduction, body and closure.

After our break, we pulled our chairs up to the front of the room to participate in our first public conference. A public conference is when one writer (or team of writers) shares their revised and edited work with the whole class with the goal of having the writing celebrated. First, the group reads through their writing aloud. Then, the teacher reads through the writing, stopping to celebrate what the writer/writing group has done well. The rest of the students in the class also have the opportunity to celebrate what they noticed about the writing. A public conference is also a time to give suggestions that the writers may want to apply to their work before meeting for a final editing conference. Suggestions could include: adding more details, re-organizing certain parts of the text, and using more specific vocabulary ("Amazing Words"). Editing feedback can also be shared at this time. 

Then, it was time to wrap up and say goodbye.

To close our time together, Ms. Sandy played her favourite song for us once again while Mme Careen

showed us the pictures from the picture book.

We were all so inspired that we began to sing along! 

It was such an incredibly powerful and inspirational moment.

Before saying goodbye, we presented Ms. Sandy with a copy of one of our favourite français picture books, 

Je veux un monstre. We chose this book because it was the inspiration for our current français writing project, 

"La création d'un monstre" which was our first introduction to technical writing 4 weeks ago 

when our preparation of this Writer's Workshop began!

Mme Buckwold also presented Ms. Sandy with some other great picture books and a writing journal as a thank you.

And then, just as quickly as it started, our time together was done. 

We shook hands, shared hugs and headed off for the rest of our day.

Having the chance to work with Ms. Sandy was truly an amazing learning experience.

We will be sure to keep in touch as we continue our writing and we can't wait to share our manual, 

The Method of Math Mobiles with her and her students once it is published!

Thank you, Ms. Sandy!

- ET -

Bravo à vous, les élèves! Vous avez travaillé tellement fort cette semaine et je suis très fière de vous!

Reposez-vous bien cette fin de semaine.

À lundi! :)

"My brain is so fried from thinking!" (aka: Residency Day 3!)

It is incredible to see how far we have moved along with our writing process in only 3 days.
We worked hard today and accomplished so much!

We started off with our Community Circle, but instead of sitting in our chairs in a semi-circle, we stood in a circle, shoulder-to-shoulder. We celebrated so many incredible things about our learning from Day 2. Many of us shared that we liked having a specific role in our group and enjoyed writing on large chart paper with good markers!

After sharing in our circle, and reading our learning goals together as a class, it was right down to work. We started off by revising our class shared write, "Problem 120" in our groups. Our task was to read over the text, making note of any revisions we would like to make to the Introduction and the Closing. We then came back as a full group and started the 'negotiation process' as a class.

To help facilitate our the revision of our class problem, we put all of our charts on the white board side by side. 

6 chart papers in all! Incredible!

We started by cutting and taping one of the charts into a different order so we could have a better idea of how the entire text would flow. We then read each section of the text together before sharing revision suggestions. In order for a change to be made to our original text, we had to vote; majority rules. Ms. Sandy and Mme Careen also negotiated back and forth with us to ensure we were making the best revisions we could.

This process was NOT easy! It took a lot of reading, re-reading, changing a word, changing our minds, re-re-reading and so on. There were many great revision suggestions from each team and many Reporters for each group were very passionate about their suggestions which created such wonderful - and exhausting - dialogue! :)

In the end, we ended up with a title, introduction and closing that we are all proud of! 

(The original text is in black and revisions are made in green).

After a well-deserved break, we came back and started the second part of our morning with public conferences. A public conference is when one group's work is read and celebrated in front of the whole class. First, the Reporter reads the group's writing aloud. Then, the teacher (in this case Mme Careen) reads the group's work aloud and stops to notice what the group has done well. She (the teacher) will also ask the group what they notice about their writing and will then ask the other students in the class what they noticed and would like to celebrate.

After the celebration of the writing, we zero in on the details and give suggestions of what the group may want to review and work on. The teacher jots down the ideas and next steps on a sticky note for the group to refer to when they start the revision process of their own writing.

The last part of the morning was spent writing in our groups. We picked up right where we left off on Day 2! By the end of the morning, all of the groups had finished their introduction and were well on their way to finishing the step-by-step instructions of their problem. Some groups have even started writing their closing sentences and will soon be ready to start editing.* Wow!

*Speaking of editing... Did you spot that bright green poster in the above pictures? That poster shows us the international symbols for editing that all publishers use! While the editing process wasn't originally a part of our learning plan today, one group - who had already finished their writing and revising - got an sneak peak! Tomorrow, after they have edited their own work and are ready to publish the final draft of their writing, they will then take on the role as our class editors for this project. This means that they will conference with the other groups and help review and edit their writing before it is submitted to Ms. Sandy and Mme Careen for final approval.

Phewf! It's no wonder our morning together flew by and that our brains are "fried from thinking!" :)

And, with that, we close off this Day 3 post with what may very well become 

one of the greatest student quotes of all time...

"With great knowledge comes a great need to nap."

Agreed. :)

Great work today, everyone!

Sleep tight! 😴

Day 2 of our Writer's Workshop!

We had another great morning with Ms. Sandy today!
It is incredible how much we have accomplished already! We are working so hard and
are learning so much about ourselves as writers!
Here's a look at what we were up to today:

We started our morning in our Community Circle, as we did yesterday.
We passed around a talking stick and shared something we liked/appreciated about yesterday's time together. It was so wonderful to hear all of the things that were important to us. Many of us liked having our letters celebrated. Some of us said watching the slideshow and seeing Ms. Sandy's mother's paintings was their favourite part of the morning. A few of us enjoyed listening to the song, "What a Wonderful World" and asked if we could listen to it again today!

After sharing, we jumped right into today's learning goals. We read them aloud together before Ms. Sandy offered more information of how we were going to meet today's "dreams."

We had three main goals today: to be introduced to the peer revision process, to write an introduction for our class problem and to get started on our own writing in our groups.

The big blue sheet Ms. Sandy is holding in the above picture is the Peer Revision Checklist. We each got our own copy as well. On this list there are 10 items that we are responsible to look for when working in teams to revise our writing. We used the checklist to review our class shared write, "Problem 120" that we did as a class on Monday.

When meeting up in our teams today, we each chose one of three roles: Recorder, Reporter, Facilitator. The job description of each role was written on the back of the tent card we selected. (You can see the cards in some of the pictures above; each role was printed on a different neon-coloured card; pink, green and purple).

Working in our groups, we now had a chance to brainstorm ideas of how to introduce our own step-by-step writing. We shared our thinking and came up with many great hooks to engage our reader! Ms. Sandy and Mme Careen also collaborated and came up with a possible introduction for our class problem, modelling that when you have the chance to talk out your ideas with someone first, your writing becomes much more efficient.

The last part of our morning together was dedicated to starting the writing of our group's own Math mobile problem. After having heard so many wonderful hooks and ideas from our peers, we were able to jump in and get started right away. There was so much great discussion among the groups and each team accomplished so much in a short amount of time.

Before ending our morning together, we took the time to celebrate each group by asking them to share what they accomplished and how they found the process of working together as a team. It was incredible to listen to all of the wonderful writing and how the team worked together in their assigned roles!

With two days down and two more to go, we can't wait to see what else might be in store for us as we continue learning together as a team. We are all working so hard and are certainly inspiring the teacher-observers in the room with everything that we are accomplishing!

Bravo les élèves!

Vous êtes formidables!

Meeting Ms. Sandy - Day 1 of our Residency!

Happy Tuesday, everyone!

What a wonderful morning of learning we had together!

It was so great to finally meet Ms. Sandy and get our Math-writing residency underway!

Here are a few pictures to show you what we accomplished together this morning.

After saying, "Hello" and shaking hands with Ms. Sandy, Ms. Sandy started celebrating the wonderful letters we wrote to her. She noticed something great in each of our letters and took the time to 

answer all of the questions we asked her.

After she celebrated us, Ms. Sandy shared more about herself. She showed us a PowerPoint filled with pictures of where she lives, her family and her students. The picture on the screen is right at the Arizona/Mexican border. 

We asked about the construction of "the wall" and what she thought about it.

She also played her favourite song, "What a Wonderful World" by Louis Armstrong while Mme Careen showed us the pictures from the book with the same title.

After a long time of sitting and listening, we took time for a brain break! 

We learned that Ms. Sandy's students often play Simon Says for their brain breaks just like we do! 

Mme Careen tried to stump us, but we're getting too good!

After our brain break, we got back to work!

Next on the agenda was reading through all of the great ideas we contributed to our 

"What Do Good Technical Writers Do?" chart. It was so great to hear everyone's voices!

Here, Ms. Sandy is sharing a published Math technical writing piece that another school here in Winnipeg has written. Ms. Sandy worked with Robert Andrews School back in February. 

Their writing piece focused on the order of operations.

She showed examples of how we can include an introduction and a closing for each of the problems. We also noticed that their manual contained a title, a table of contents and a glossary - 

all things that we had noted on our "Technical Writing" chart.

Here we are looking over the shared write of the Math mobile problem we did yesterday as a class.

After rereading it together as a group, we made a few changes to our thinking; adding in missed words, changing other words to be more specific and discussing that we should likely include an Author's Note to explain the PEDMAS concept in more detail for our reader.

After this, things in our room got very busy!

The last part of morning involved us getting into groups of 3 and picking our mobile problem that we'll be writing on over the next 3 days. We found a spot at the white board (one group worked on a small board on the floor) and got to work solving our problem. While we were working, Ms. Sandy and Mme Careen visited each group to listen to our thinking. Ms. Sandy wrote our key "language thinking" ideas onto a post-it note so that we know how to start off our writing tomorrow. Mme Careen took pictures of our work so we can have a guide of our "Math thinking."

The morning flew by and we barely even noticed the 25 visitors in our room with us! :)

We all worked so well as a group and contributed so much to today's lessons.

We can't wait to see what we'll start our day off with tomorrow! 

All set up and ready to go!

Happy Monday, everyone!

Only ONE more sleep until Ms. Sandy is with us! :)

We had a busy morning of learning today!

After we talked a bit about what to expect over the coming days (and got over the shock that we will have
25 guests in our room watching us this week!) we got straight to work.

Our two main goals this morning were to:

1) Re-organize our "What We Notice" chart into specific sections, thus transforming in into the chart,
"What do good technical writers do?"

 

2) Complete our class shared write for a "balancing mobile" problem.

Page 1 of our "shared write" in Math.

Our AMAZING Math words!
These two charts are in French, but (hiding behind them) are also the same chart in English!
We will refer to these word charts often when we are writing in our groups this week!

These writing pieces will be the first charts we go through with Ms. Sandy tomorrow, so it was important that 

ALL of voices were heard and shared on our charts.

We learned A LOT about writing with urgency and stamina this morning. Collaborating on a text together as a class requires everyone's full focus and participation the entire time! The more we share and build on each other's ideas, the better our thinking and our writing becomes!

We will be working with the same intensity all this week and we know we can do it! We came up with so many great ideas this morning and respecting others' ideas and negotiating with one another was essential to our success.

I (Mme Careen) am so very excited to be on this journey with you this week. Together, we will grow SO much as writers and learn so many skills that will help us become stronger learners across all subject areas! 

Je crois en vous!

À demain! :)

Our room is now set up and ready to go!

What do we notice about technical writing?

We were lucky to work with Mme Champagne again this morning as we continue to notice 

more and more about technical writing!

Today we read excerpts from a book with many technical writing features, Les monstres.

Mme Champagne chose this book for us because she knows we are currently working on creating our own monsters in Français... AND this book is also currently featured in our classroom library!

As Mme Champagne read from the text and showed us the pictures and pages, we continued to add to our
"What do you notice about technical writing?" chart. Our goal by the end of today's class was to ensure that each one of us had our voice heard at least once... and we got there! Great, work team!

Our next step with this chart is to take all of our amazing ideas and organize them into specific, technical-writing-features categories so we can better notice what good technical writers do. Our ideas will be posted in our classroom over the duration of our writing residency so we can be reminded of all the features
we should be including in our own writing.