Bansho!

What's a Bansho, you might ask.

The word Bansho comes from the Japanese word meaning "blackboard".  A bansho is used in math to display student work.

"To make public the mathematical thinking students use to solve problems, teachers need a way of organizing the work so everyone can see the range of student thinking. Such organization lets students see their own thinking in the context of the similar thinking of others. Students are expected to follow and be able to describe all the work represented – not just their own. They listen to the explanation of other students and restate, in their own words, the strategies the other students used. 

The bansho process uses a visual display of all student solutions, organized from least to most mathematically rich. This is a process of assessment forlearning and lets students and teachers see the full range of mathematical thinking used to solve the problem. Students have the opportunity to see and hear many approaches, and they are able to consider strategies that connect with the next step in their conceptual understanding of the mathematics. "  (Professionally Speaking)

This way, students are gaining an understanding of math (in today's case, division) not simply by memorizing an algorithm but by finding their own strategies so they own their knowledge.  

Today in math, students were given two problems to solve with a group, or with a partner.  Through investigation, students developed their own strategies for dividing three-digit numbers.  I did not teach them division yet, nor did I suggest that the operation required was division.  Ask your child to describe the strategies to you.


The strategies posted below are not organized in any particular order, such as from least to most mathematically rich.

 

Made a model using base ten materials

 Used multiplication

Repeated addition

Short division

Make an array

Make a model - divide into equal groups

Draw a model of base ten

Break down the number - partial product division

They drew equal size graphs - we ran out of time, but I am eager to hear their explanation.

The first problem was nice and neat - the number could be equally divided with no remainders.  The second problem was a "dirty" number - with remainders, and  a little more challenging.  Most groups completed the second problem, but we did not have time to share our strategies yet.  We will do that next week, as tomorrow we have Gap Closing math.  As you can see, all the groups successfully solved the problem! 

Just a reminder: Tomorrow we have a Buy Out Block.  Students donate a Toonie to buy out of class for the last block to watch Rise of the Guardians.  Chips will be sold for $1.00, and licorice will sold for $0.25

 

On Tuesday, April 2, students will be participating in a comic drawing workshop organized by Mrs. Campbell-Sheen.  Artists will hold the workshop in the gym between 12:05-12:50.  There is no cost for this workshop.

Reading Response

I was so excited by this reading response, I had to share! 

Thank you Bridget!

Pratiquez la lecture!

I have recorded today's reading lesson for students to practice at home.  They should focus on fluency, expression, and pronunciation while reading for comprehension.  If they are unsure of how to pronounce a word, they may listen along, or read along with the video.  I had some technical difficulties so they video is not exactly as I would like, but it will do, I hope.  If someone knows how to block the other youtube videos that are being linked to our lecture, please drop me a line. klemire@mail1.scdsb.on.ca


La mascotte:

Le jeune pharaon - chapitre 2

Bonne lecture mes amis!

Health Bitstrips!

Some of the Health Bitstrips have been submitted and are ready for your viewing!  I hope you enjoy them.  I will post student samples here as they become available. Unfortunately, I am having some technical difficulties.  It seems the longer the bitstrips are, the smaller the pictures and writing appear - sorry about that.  At this time, I do not know how to correct this problem.  I hope you are still able to read the bitstrips, or are able to zoom in on them from home.

Success Criteria

 The assignment is due Thursday, March 28th.  There is no more class time allotted for this project, but most students are near completion.

Included are pictures of my little writers/publishers hard at work (or making funny faces).

  

Nadine

Jack

Emma

Brya

Bridget

Ally



Maija (It doesn't matter what I do, I can't seem to save this in a larger format - sorry Maija)

McKay

Lauren

Sabrina

Laynaol

Lane

If you have submitted your bitstrip for review and it does not appear on this page it is because it was sent back to you for revisions.  Please use my feedback to improve your work.  Make sure you have used the success criteria and your notes to complete your assignment to the best of your abilities. If you are still working on your draft, here's a tip:  The speech bubbles are read from top to bottom, so if a bubble is slightly higher than another one would be read first.  No need to numberspeech bubbles in the comic.  Just make sure they are ordered by height (or, so my daughter tells me).

Here's some food for thought.

Now that's a lot of sugar!

The End of Our Week

In math, we continued broadening our repertoire of multiplication strategies.  We added the lattice method and the array method to our strategies, as well as using estimation to check our answers for reasonableness.  Just click on the links for instructions to help your child.

Multiplying using estimation, arrays and lattice method

Homework

In English, with the help of Mika's mom, we did three days of our Guided Reading rotation. Thank you Mrs. Vander merwe for volunteering your time.

 

Our theme is social justice, primarily focusing on child labour.  We are using the texts to strengthen our inferring skills - making inferences about character traits supported by evidence from the text and our own ideas. 

 

At the Guided Reading table, students read texts related to our Group Read text.  They read aloud to demonstrate their fluency and expression, then we discussed the text, using a variety of strategies, to demonstrate a deep understanding, beyond what is written.  The content lead to some pretty sophisticated discussions about rights, freedom, influence and making a difference.  

 

The two texts that we used at the Guided Reading table supplemented our knowledge of Iqbal Mashi's story and introduced Craig Kielburger's organisation of Free the Children.  You may click on the links for more information. 

Iqbal Masih - activist

 Naturally, our Word Study is linked to our themes in guided reading.

We also had time to squeeze in a trip to the library to visit the book fair and to do a quick book exchange.  Look at the wonderful selection of books at the fair! The last day for the book fair is Monday, March 25th - open from 8:30-3:30.

Mrs. Campbell-Sheen

In Social Studies, we are continuing our study of Ancient Greece.  Students are seen graphing temperature and precipitation data for Athens.

Sticking with our theme of Ancient Civilizations, our lecture for this next little while will be centered around the non-fiction text Le mystère du jeune pharaon.

Finally, Pita order forms were sent home on Friday.  If you intend to purchase pita lunches for your child for the month of April, please DO NOT  purchase for April 30th.  We plan to visit Roger's studio to participate in a media workshop.  Roger's will cover the cost of transportation and will provide a pizza lunch for the class.

Well, that's the end of our week in a nutshell.  Have a great weekend!

P.S.  I almost forgot, we need magazines for an upcoming Earth Day art project.  If you have any magazines that you don't mind sending us to reuse, I would really appreciate the donation.  We also still need empty cream bottles for another future art project.  Thank you for your continued support.