Recent Tests and Vocabulary Words

As you know, we had a math test on Tuesday and a literacy evaluation on Thursday of this week.  As seems to be the pattern this year, not all students have written them yet.  They will be returned to the students once everyone has completed them.  Thank you for your patience.

Here is the latest crop of vocabulary words.  Our class has come up with some great words - some that I had forgotten about!  Keep them coming!


Proportional Reasoning - In math, I am trying to develop this concept with my students.  Simply put, it is the ability to compare two or more things using multiplicative thinking, and apply this skill to new situations.  We have been dabbling with this all year, but we recently dealt with this for a summative problem solving task (in the purple duo tang that you saw during your child's student-led conference).  The results were very mixed, with some students being very successful with the question and others not.   

Which jar of salsa is the better deal?  Justify your thinking. 

For this weekend, please have your child complete this question for practice and feel free to pose these types of questions to them when real life situations present themselves.  The grocery store is a great spot for this since you can use proportional reasoning to determine which sized package is the better deal, for example.  Give it a try!

Here is another to try:  If two dozen cookies cost $12.00, how much does one dozen cost?  How much does one cookie cost?  Justify your thinking.