Les maths au gymnase

We started playing a new game in PE this week. Students aim to win the biggest number of points by throwing beanbags into the hoop.

Yellow beanbags are worth 1 point each. Red beanbags are worth 10 points each.

This simple game has students practice a number of skills.

Students practice spatial reasoning in assessing how hard or soft to throw a bean bag for it to land on target.

They practice personal and social responsibility in participating in the game and encouraging their classmates.

Finally, they practice creative and critical thinking in counting beanbags to figure out final scores.

Le matériel de base dix

We’ve started exploring base 10 materials this week. We’re exploring this Big Idea from the Grade 2 curriculum: “Numbers to 100 represent quantities that can be decomposed into 10s and 1s.”

We’re learning this content regarding place value:

understanding of 10s and 1s

understanding the relationship between digit places and their value, to 99 (e.g., the digit 4 in 49 has the value of 40)

decomposing two-digit numbers into 10s and 1s

As seen in the photo above, students had fun exploring even bigger numbers. They noted how the number 10 is important in each unit, ex. 10 ones make one ten, 10 tens make one hundred, etc.

We’ve been learning relevant math vocabulary such as une unité (a one), une dizaine (a ten), une centaine (a hundred), or valeur de position (place value).

On aime les arbres!

Slowly but surely, we’re increasing our endurance outside. This is especially important as we move into the rainy season.

With repeated exposure, children develop bonds to our local plants and animals.

On this day, some students hugged the tree in front of our classroom. One student wanted to say ‘Thank you for oxygen’. The other student said ‘Trees need hugs.’

La paix c’est…

Last week, students were asked  to reflect on what gives them peace.

Here are their answers:

La lecture

Students change their books.

Students are learning to choose appropriate books for themselves. Every week, they’re encouraged to switch them to be more exposed to new stories.

We read daily in different ways – lecture avec un.e ami.e (read with a friend), lecture (teacher readaloud), lecture à soi (read to self), and lecture en groupe (group readaloud), so regularly changing one’s books is essential to sustain interest.

When we read to ourselves, we have a special routine in deciding how long we’ll try to read. We use ‘real world’ math in deciding just how many minutes we want to read on a given day. We use number lines to track different lengths of time in minutes.

Once decided, we aim to read that number of minutes following the three basic rules below. After the session, we use a chart to record how many minutes we’ve successfully read.

The three Lecture à soi rules.

We know we’ve been successful if we’ve stayed in one spot, remained quiet, and read. Simple yet so hard sometimes!

Our current reading stamina chart.

L’estimation

This week, we’ve been focusing on estimation. Students are learning to estimate reasonably by looking for groups of 2, 5, or 10 and then using that quantity to estimate the total quantity.

Students’ impulse is to count immediately, but they’re learning that estimating is an important math skill in itself.

Counting collections at the ready.

Today, they did an estimation activity with a partner. In each Ziploc bag, there were up to 50 objects. They were asked to look for a referent, estimate, and then count with ten frames.

We practiced estimating by (1) first looking for a group of 5 – “a referent” (2) looking for other approximate groups of 5 (3) creating groups of 10 using mental math (4) and finally actually counting with groups of 10s and 1s using ten frames.

Interestingly, many pairs estimated the exact number of objects in their Ziploc. 🤔 We’ll continue to practice estimating to fully understand what it means.

Consider creating your own ‘counting collection’ at home. It’s a great way to practice skip counting too!

 

 

Les émotions

Tima chooses an emotion from our helpful emotions poster. On the whiteboard, two tally marks have been drawn to show that Division 10 students have successfully identified two emotions already!

Students have been learning to identify feelings through a game this week.

We’ve been learning just how much we communicate through non-verbal clues – through facial expression or body language.

In this game, a student secretly chooses an emotion and then tries to represent it physically. Classmates have to guess what feeling their peer is acting out.

In playing this game, we’ve also been learning new French vocabulary such as “susceptible” (sensitive), “gêné” (embrassed), “coupable” (guilty), “fier” (proud), or “déçu” (disappointed).

We practice to read social clues to improve our emotional intelligence. When calmer and happier, learning comes easier!

 

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