Monthly Archives: December 2014

Big Bang Theory and the Common Core

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Part of our major work this year in math is focusing on the Math Practices from the Common Core.  As teachers we are working on mastering these excellent practices that all mathematicians use.  They are:

  1. Make sense of problems and persevere in solving them.
  2. Reason abstractly and quantitatively.
  3. Construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others.
  4. Model with mathematics
  5. Use appropriate tools strategically.
  6. Attend to precision.
  7. Look for and make use of structure.
  8. Look for and express regularity in repeated reasoning.

Have you got all that?  No?  That’s okay.  I’ve attached a great Big Bang Theory compilation that illustrates the different practices.  First you might want to do a little studying up and then see if you can identify which practice each clip is showing.

Think you have them all?  Check the answer key to see just how expert you are at the math practices.

Reduce / Reuse / Recycle

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Discovery Families:

Our third grade students are studying recycling.  As part of this unit, they are discussing what it really means to recycle.  When I stopped up to Mrs. Miller’s room this week, students were in the middle of comparing the process of reusing and recycling.  As one student put it, “Recycling requires us to use other energy to change the thing into another product and you have to ship it out to somewhere.  When you reuse something, you can just use it in a different way in your house.”  It was an amazing answer and the best was that students kept adding to this.

They then directed me to a website that was showing all the ways that you can reuse the Keurig K-Cups.  If you don’t know, those K-Cups are a large contributor to landfills.  If you would like some ideas for ways to reuse them in your own house, check out this site.  As the students told me, “You could even make an ornament or a coin holder Mr. Reed-Swale.”  I tried to get one student to make a coin holder and put some money in it for me, but he was wise to my trick.  I’ll have to keep working on it.  It will be an uphill battle against our third graders.  They are a sharp group of students.

-Mr. Reed-Swale