Mrs. Burke's Blog: Math Forums and Useful Links

Students took part in two math forums this week. The first was to share their thinking about how to find the volume of rectangular prisms. Below you will find pictures of the posters they created, working in pairs, for their first math forum. The second math forum was about finding the surface area of the same rectangular prisms they discussed in the first math forum. Students did a very nice job of sharing their strategies for finding the surface area and commenting on each other's work. Below you will also find pictures of their second math forum. Be sure to ask them about these forums and find out if they learned any new strategies for finding volume and surface area of rectangular prisms.

I have added some new links to the right hand side of my blog which I hope you will find useful:

The first link is called "Homework Board." This link will take you to a Google Doc that is a copy of what the students should have written in their planner each day for homework. Although it is the student's responsibility to write their homework in their planner each day, I realize some parents question when their child says they don't have any homework. Now you are one click away from checking to see if this is correct! I will still require students to writing their homework in their planner each night and have them get a parent signature so I know parents have seen what they have for homework, but this link will allow you to double check what they have written in their planner.

The second link is called "Ben's Guide to U.S. Government. Students have been using this link in school to learn more about our government system. I have also given them an opportunity to play the learning games on this website and thought they might want to play them at home, with your permission, of course.