Order of Operations

Phew* This week has been crazy!  I survived- only to gear up for another exciting week at school.  I don't know how you are feeling but- report cards are due, I volunteered to write a playground grant that is also due, we are MAPS testing on Monday/Tuesday, and I will be gone Thursday and Friday for the NAESP conference in Seattle.  Expect some fun updates on the conference, I get to play "principal" for a couple of days!

I wanted to share a math game that my kiddos played on Friday.  I just LOVE math games.  My group this year are super active and because of our schedule- they really need to be up and moving in order to concentrate in math.  We have been working on order of operations and introducing the concept of parenthesis in math.  They are solid on the fact that parenthesis means "do this first" but, are struggling to integrate parenthesis into problem solving number sentences.  So, we played a little game where they needed to use parenthesis to determine how many points they earned!

The students tossed ten bean bags into the different shaped openings.  Each one was worth a different value- the top circle was worth one point, the left square was worth two, and the right diamond was worth three.  We kept a tally chart to record how many bean bags went into the goal and then the students used their white boards to create a number sentence and figure out the number of points that each student earned.  The student tossing- created their number sentence on the board so that we could compare our answers.

It was a very simple game but the students really seemed to pick up on the application of parenthesis.  On Monday they will be working on a problem solving activity so I will let you know how it translates!

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I decided that I couldn't let St. Patrick's Day slide without doing *SOMETHING* so we just did a quick shamrock/rainbow art project.  The kids had a blast and we managed to squeeze it in at the end of the day without feeling rushed!

 This little guy just HAD to have his picture taken- they are so funny sometimes!

I hope everyone out in blogworld had a great weekend.  I was busy, busy, busy with a friends 30th birthday celebration on Friday,  a St. Patrick's day spent at the Seattle Sounders MLS opening game and another friends birthday party on Sunday!