Math – Mrs. Zurfluh Archive Blog

One of our math objectives is comparing volume using more than, less than, the same as (with units).
Mrs. Zurfluh and Ms. Tracey set up a sand table with different kinds of containers. KZE students had the opportunity to explore and share their noticing:
Ada: “The more sand you have, the heavier it is.”
Seok: “I can make shapes in the sand.”
Tomasz: “This cup holds more sand because when I pour the sand in this cup, the sand come out.”
Safir: “I can make shapes in the sand.”
Alexandra: “This jar can hold more sand then the little cup.”
Alex:” There are more sand in the bowl and less sand in the jar. Because the bowl is wider.”
Soeun: “The little cup is lighter than the yellow cup because the yellow cup holds more sand.”
Amie: “You can make marks in the sand.”
Altai:” The sand can stick. The jar can hold lots of sand.”
Julia: “Sand can be hard, and can be soft.
Veronika: “There are lots of sand here. They are very little.”
Nick: “The bowl hold more sand than the cup because it is bigger.”
Mali: “The yellow cup holds more sand than the pink cup. The pink cup and the blue cup hold the same because they are the same type of cups.”

The next day, Mrs. Zurfluh showed students two containers – a jug and a water bottle. She asked: “Which one holds more? Why you say that? And how can you find out?”

Our exploration continues. Students worked in groups to try to find the answer.
Group 1A – Alex, Soeun, Ada
We think that the bottle can hold more because it is taller.
Strategy: we will put sand in the bottle and the jug, then we will weigh them with a scale and see which one weighs more. The one that weights more will hold more sand.
Action: Finding out using our strategy.
Afterward: “Oh no, the jug weights more than the bottle. It is totally different than what we had predicted.”

Group 1B – Mali, Nick
We think that the jug will hold more because it is wider.
Strategy: We will put sand or water in the bottle and jug. Then we weigh them with the scale. The one weights more is the one that holds more.
Action: Finding out using our strategy.
Afterward: “I KNEW IT. The jug is heavier and holds more.”

Group 2 – Altai, Veronika, Amie, Julia, Tim
We think that the bottle holds more because it is taller.
Strategy 1: We will fill the bottle with sand. Then pour the sand into the jug and see if the jug is full.
Action: Pour sand from the bottle to the jug. The jug still have some room.
Afterward: Julia/Altai still think the bottle hold more. But Amie, Veronika, and Tim think the jug holds more.
Strategy 2: Fill both with sand and see which one is heavier.
Action: Finding out using our strategy.
Afterward: We all agreed that the jug is heavier, and thus the jug holds more.
Strategy 3: Fill them with sand and weight them with a scale.
Action: finding out using our strategy.
Afterward: The jug is heavier and holds more.

Group 3 – Alexandra, Tomasz, Safir, Seok, Emmi
We think that the bottle holds more because the bottle is bigger.
Strategy 1: We will put sand in the containers, then we talk about it and see which one holds more.
Action: Finding out using our strategy.
Afterwards: We still think the bottle holds more.
Strategy 2: We put sand in the jug and then put sand in the bottle. Then we put both on a scale to see which one is heavier. The heavier one holds more.
Action: Finding out using our strategy.
Afterwards: Tomasz, Emmi, Seok changed their mind because the jug is heavier than the bottle. So the jug holds more.

After the exploration, we all agreed that the jug holds more sand than the water bottle. We noticed that we can’t say which container holds more just because they are either taller, or bigger. We need to measure them.

KZE students continue to explore comparing volume using unit of measure (cup). They found it easier to see how much each container holds. And it is easier to compare which container holds more.

May 15, 2015

Temperature…

Our inquiry story starts with…
“It is very hot today!” “How hot is it?”
“How can we find out?”
“Measure it!”
“HOW???”
“Use a thermometer!”
“HOW???”

So We watched a video on how to use a thermometer. Then we practiced using the thermometer to measure the temperature in the classroom. We talked about how to record the temperature – in a chart. After that, we went outside to measure and record the temperatures in sunny places and shady places. After coming back to the classroom, we looked at our recording sheets and noticed that:
Michael: “I noticed that the temperatures are different.”
Lizzy: “I noticed that some temperatures are higher than others.”
Kyle: “Higher is hotter and shorter is colder. When it is sunny the temperature goes up and when it is cold, the temperature goes down.”
Scarlett: “I noticed that some of the temperatures are the same.”

After more discussion, we agreed that the temperatures in sunny places are higher than shady places. But WHY???
Daisy: “The sun can’t really get to the shady places because the sun is up, not sideways and if there is a roof, it is colder.”
Scarlett: “The sun can’t get into tunnels so it is colder.”
Trace: “The sun can get to sunny places but it can’t get to shady places because they are in the way.”
Lizzy: “The sun is in space and the planets go around it.”
Lisa: “The temperature is higher because the sun is hot and makes things warm. It brings heat.”
Kyle: “So Lisa, you are saying that the sun is like fire?”
Daisy: “The sun is made out of fire. It is yellow and looks like fire.”

Our research continues…

https://animoto.com/play/ducfIEnI8ob1Fb05CBy6DQ

February 13, 2015

100 paper chain…

In celebrating the 100 day of school, KZE students came up with activities that are 100 related. One of the activities was using 100 paper strips to make a paper chain. Before starting, each group came up with a plan on how to keep track of numbers. Then they put the paper strips together to make the paper chains. At last, they did reflection on how their plan worked. Following (and the video) documented student’s learning process:

Group 1 decided to count out 100 paper strips first, they counted by 10s. Lisa and Safiya were partners and worked from one end of the chain sharing the work taking turns in loading and stapling. Trace and Michael were partners and worked from the other end of the chain with Michael loading the strips and Trace stapling them. Group 1 completed their chain in the fastest time. They agreed that their strategy was good as they worked from both ends of the chain at the same time.
Lisa: ‘We only had 1 strategy and it worked really well the first time.’

Group 2 decided to write down a number each time a partner put in one paper strip. At the beginning Scarlett recorded while other group members took turns in adding a chain. This was very slow. So Group 2 decided to change their strategy to speed up the process.
Scarlett: ‘Doing things in turns took a long time.’
Kyle: ‘If we each did something different it went quicker.’
With the new strategy – Scarlett tracked the number, Fatima passed the strips to Kyle and Liam, and they loaded and stapled the chains working from opposite ends. So although the first strategy ‘kind of worked’, changing it slightly meant Group 2 were able to complete their chain faster and were the second group to finish.

Group 3 decided to use a hundred chart to help keep track of the numbers of paper strips that were used. They each took turns coloring a number and adding a chain. This strategy did not work well and was very slow. To speed up the process, Group 3 changed their strategy. They began to work from both ends of the chain and both ends of the 100 chart. On reflection Group 3 decided that they would not use their first strategy again.
Emerson: ‘The plan did not work very well.’
Daisy: ‘It was really slow and we came last.’
They decided they would use a whole new strategy and start from both ends right at the very beginning.

Question: KZE made three paper chains with 100 strips each. Are they all the same length or are they different? How are we going to find out?
Daisy: ‘The chains will be the same length because they all have 100 paper strips.
Kyle agreed but Lizzy was not sure. Nearly everyone in the class thought they should be the same length but agreed with Lizzy that they could not be sure. Lisa suggested we measure the chains to find out. There were many suggestions on using rulers or blocks. Lizzy figured out that the best way to do it was to put the chains side by side and see. KZE took their chains into the corridor and we measured them. Group 1 had the longest chain while Group 2 and 3 were similar in length.

Why were they different?
Daisy suggested we count Group 1’s chain again and make sure there were only 100 strips in it.
We went out and recounted Group 1’s chain and discovered that there were really 104 strips in it instead of 100!!!! When we removed the extra 4 strips, all 3 chains were the same length!

Question: Is one of our 100 chains longer than all the students in KZE combined?
Most students thought the chain would be shorter than the combined length of the students in KZE. Emerson and Michael thought it would be longer.
We went back into the corridor and the KZE students lay top to toe alongside one of the paper chains. The paper chain was as long as only 8 students and we had 12 students in the class today. This showed that the chain was shorter than the combined length of the students in KZE.

https://animoto.com/play/r8nRgiWmCWSnTRxK6y5P6A

December 3, 2014

For the week of December 1 to December 5…

Unit of Inquiry:

For the past six weeks, KZE students had many opportunities to inquire into how communities provide services designed to meet people’s needs. As we wrap up the “Community” unit this week, students reflected on what they had learned on the topic. Here are some of the highlights:

People need a community to live in so that they can have different services nearby. – Max
People need food. If they don’t have food, they will die. – Fatima
We need jacket because when it is cold outside, the jacket will keep us warm. – Freddie
We need water to drink so that we won’t die. – Safiya
We need trees so we can breath. – Charlie
We need different services in our community. – Hannes
We learned that we need to plan when we built our model community. – Daisy
We learned that we should work as a team when we made our model community. – Emerson

Sharing our published “True Stories”
For the past two weeks, KZE students practiced writing “true stories”. They tried to think of something that happened or that they did. Next, they told what happened with pictures and words. We reminded ourselves that we should always try to tell WHO is in the story, WHERE the story takes place, and WHAT is happening. We practiced telling the story in a storyteller’s voice and used speech bubbles to remember what people said. They were very proud to share their published books with their reading buddies. GO KZE writers!

Math – 3D shapes

During math, we reviewed some basic two dimensional shapes before introducing basic three dimensional shapes including cone, cuboid, pyramid, cylinder, cube, and sphere. We will continue to reinforce the following in the coming weeks: correctly name shapes regardless to their orientations or overall size, Identify shapes as 2D (flat) or 3D (solid), building shapes, compare 2D and 3D shapes and describe their similarities/differences as well as other attributes.

November 25, 2014

Math – Operations and Algebraic Thinking…

During math, KZE students are exploring some basic concepts of operations and algebraic thinking. We are learning to represent addition using objects, fingers, drawings, explanations, and equations. We will continue trying to solve addition word problems by using drawings to show our work. We also are finding different ways to make 10 with the help of our ten frames. We are using colored counters to represent addition facts to 10. We used two different colors of counters to fill the ten frame, say the number sentence, and used numbers and symbols to represent the solution. We will continue to practice these skills in the coming weeks.

https://animoto.com/play/eHIRs2xW5grsshqwE5gZ1A

October 15, 2014

Collaborative inquiry into math…

KZE students had a discussion about how we can use counting skills in our daily lives. We came up with a list of things that we can count. We voted the three things we like to count the most and formed our inquiry groups. Each group came up with a plan/strategy first and then went to work. After that we came back and shared what we had discovered.

Group 1
Our first plan: two people recorded the first floor, two people recorded the second floor, two people recorded the third floor and all of us recorded the fourth floor. When we came back together and tried to find out the total number, we noticed that everybody had a different total. We realized that our first plan didn’t work well. So we came up with another strategy. All of us recorded every drinking fountain that we saw. When we came back after the second try, most of us had the same total: 20. We decided that our second plan worked better. It helped us to find the correct answer.

http://youtu.be/KKYsQpG0lys

Group 2
Our plan was: use two different strategies to be sure we count the classrooms in ES properly. We decided to put sticker on the schedule of each classroom in ES. Then we took those stickers off and count them. We got 34 stickers. We also used the other strategy at the same time: one of us was writing down the numbers of the classrooms. Then we counted the numbers and got 31. So we decided to make double check with the numbers. We wrote down the numbers of the classrooms, count them and got 35. Then checked thoroughly and found out that we put in the list one number twice. So we got 34 numbers of the classrooms. Our strategy with the stickers worked properly from the first time, but the strategy with writing the numbers needed the double check.

http://youtu.be/jaWl86QV5yY

Group 3
Our Plan: We decided the safest way to count cars in the Main Car Park was to work as team and stay together counting only the cars on the left side where there was a sidewalk. We used tally marks to record the number of cars and we also put a tile in front of each car as we went along to check our answer on the way back. Once we reached the end of the sidewalk we counted up our tally marks and had a total of 32 cars. We walked back picking up and counting the tiles we had left behind. One car had gone so although we counted 32 tiles, there were really only 31 cars left in the car park at the end of the exercise.

http://youtu.be/kV_mx0exOTM

September 26, 2014

Measurement and “Who We Are”…

What did we learn about measurement…

We measured people and we measured other objects.
Objects and people can be different sizes.
We always have to check twice after we measured.
We always need to measure from one end to the other end.
We always need to count slowly when you finished.
Take your time to measure.
The things that you are measuring with has to be the same.
We can use objects like crayons, cubes, links, plastic foots, paper, books, markers, erasers etc. to measure other larger objects.
We can use everything to measure.
WE HAVE FUN MEASRUING STUFFS…

Unit of Inquiry – Who We Are

Students finished sharing their “About Me” box. Thank you for helping them with this project. They did a great job sharing and showing who they are and how they are unique. We discussed in depth about what feelings we have and how to express them. Students applied their writing skills to create their “My Feelings” Book. This process increases their awareness of their emotions. It laid a good foundation for helping students find appropriate ways to express themselves.

September 16, 2014

Strategies…

KZE students created this post during share writing time in the classroom this morning. Here is what we did:

We sorted people
For example, we all sat on the carpet. We picked people to go to the middle. And the other people tried to guess what strategy we were using
We sorted by hair colors
We sorted by shoe colors
We sorted by red clothes
I learned that we need to raise our hands when we have something to say
I learned how to sort people and stuff by saying what they look like, and put them together
Most important thing we learned was that we can sort by using different strategies.

We revised our writing, and added more details. We decided to add our names. We hope you enjoyed our post.

KZE writers: Kyle, Michael, Emerson, Liam, Max, Daisy, Scarlett, Fatima, Charlie, Lizzy, Lisa, Trace, Hannes, Safiya, and Freddie

September 12, 2014

Sorting and Inquiry – How the World Works!

The KZE explorers had a busy week.

In Math, students had a chance to explore/play with many different kinds of buttons. They needed to describe the buttons with words such as “red,” “little,” “2 holes,” “smooth,” etc. They were asked to sort buttons into groups according to these terms. This is a foundational math skill that helps students to identify common attributes and begin to see different ways to match and sort objects. In essence, it is a methodology for making sense of key mathematical understanding.

Similarly, during the introduction to our year long unit of “How the World Works”, students were given a picture of people riding bicycles and another picture of a single bicycle wheel. They used a visible thinking strategy titled “I See, I think, I wonder…” to describe what they observed.

Here are the highlight of our conversation:

“I see a wheel, it is a bicycle wheel”
“it is round, it is a circle”
“what did you notice about the circle?”
“it goes around and around and around”
“it is a cycle”
“what is a cycle?”
“a cycle can be a circle”
“a cycle can be a rectangle, or a triangle. as long as it doesn’t end”
“it is repeating”
“can you think of anything that can be called a cycle?”
“the weather”
“recess”
“writing”
“the earth rotating”
“the class schedule”, “the day of the week”, “and the month of the year”

Through the conversation, students made a leap from our picture to a basic understanding of the concept of a cycle. We were able to make connections to their daily experiences and, like in math, formed a core concept that will serve our ongoing theme of how things work.

September 4, 2014

Math – graphing

The concept of basic graphing was introduced. Students used data on eye color, hair color, and the number of letters in their names to create bar graphs. They now have a basic knowledge of how to describe information on the graph.

Category: Math

Inquiry into volume…