Measuring in Meters

Yesterday we began our math unit on the metric system. The students were very excited to get their hands on some meter sticks and measure the height, length, and width of things in the classroom. Here are a few pictures of them hard at work.

Carl and Grace worked hard to measure the length of the classroom.

Sophia's armspan is one meter long!

Look at that teamwork!

A Fun Multiplication Game

We have been studying multiplication and division in math over the past month and the students are catching on to the relationship between addition and multiplication.  One way we are reinforcing that in the classroom is to play the game Circles and Stars.  You can play it at home if you have paper, a pencil, and a die.  Here are the instructions:

CIRCLES AND STARS

PURPOSE:  To have the most stars on your page.

WHAT YOU NEED:

         One piece of paper

         One dice

         A pencil

         Your thinking mind

HOW TO PLAY:

1.       Fold your paper in half like a hot dog and like a hamburger.  Open it up and trace on the folds.  You will have 4 equal sections on each side of the paper so you can play a total of 7 rounds.  One box is used to add at the end.

2.       The first person rolls the dice once.  Whatever the number is he or she draws that many circles in the first box.  Make sure your circles are big enough to draw stars in later!

3.       Player two rolls the dice and draws circles on his or her paper as well.

4.       The first person rolls the dice again and that number is the number of stars that will go in EACH circle.  Draw that number of stars in each circle, then write a multiplication problem that shows how many stars you have.

5.       Player two does the same thing.

6.       Repeat this until you have filled up 7 of the 8 boxes.  In the 8^th box you will add the number of stars you had in each box to find your total.  The person with the most stars is the winner!

Meet the New Tables

We changed the students' table groups a few weeks ago and they recently had the opportunity to work together to come up with a table name.  It can be challenging for a small group of second graders to compromise and cooperate to create a name everyone agrees upon, but they were all able to do it!  Meet your new table groups!

The Slowest Elephants

The Cool Koalas

The Golden Pigeons

The Awesome Cheetahs