Week 4

Week 4 Virtual Manipulative: Number Line Bounce
Number Line Bounce is under Number and Operations grades 3 – 5. This manipulative helps students practice with addition and subtraction of whole numbers. Students work on the number line moving left and right with the given arrows to end up with the given target. Using this manipulative students should be able to understand that there are several different ways to arrive at a given answer. Students first have to put the arrows on the number line and then write the number sentence. What I like about this manipulative is that it does not only use two numbers in the problem but four, it makes it more challenging for the students.

Week 4 Private Universe Project:
This week’s Private Universe Workshop 4 – Thinking Like a Mathematician talked about the Tower of Hanoi Problem which we learned about a few weeks ago in class. The students had to find out how long it would take to solve the puzzle with 100 pieces. The problem was introduced to them by Robert Davis. He showed the students how it might be easier if they simplified the problem. It is important to show students that there are several ways to solve a problem. With this problem the students noticed that there was a pattern involved. The students found that there were many patterns involved. After finding out how many moves they worked together to figure out how long it would take. They came up with the answer of two billion years. In part two of the video it reminds us that we have to let our students figure problems out on their own. We should not always give them the answer right way we should make them think on their own.

Week 4 Lesson Plan: Changing Areas (Color Tiles)
For this week’s lesson I chose Changing Areas. Students will build a Color Tile shape and then find its perimeter. They will have to build other shapes with the same perimeter and then find the area of each of these shapes. In this activity children have the opportunity to measure to find the perimeter of a shape. They will also develop the understanding that figures with the same perimeter can have different areas. What I liked about this lesson is that students are reviewing perimeter and area of shapes. With this lesson students learn that the area and perimeter of shapes are not always consistent with each other.