What's Been Happening in Math?

What Have We Been Learning About in Math?

If you have had an opportunity to come into the school, hopefully you had a chance to see our class displays of the work we've been doing in math during the first term of school.  We've been working on data management, sorting and patterning.  More recently, we have been focusing on number sense.


Surveys, Graphing and Sorting
At the beginning of the year, as we were getting to know each other, we surveyed our class and graphed the results of our surveys.  Here are some of the surveys we did:  How Many Letters are in Your Name?;  How Many Words are in Your Name?; and What is Your Favourite Colour?  Some children even came up with their own survey questions.  They surveyed the class and organized the data, and later, they reported their results to the class.

When our graphs are complete, we examine them and discuss the results.  What did we find out?  The students' observations are recorded and posted along with the graphs.

Here are  a few photos:

Home-School Connection:  Your child may be interested in collecting data (information) at home, too.  Young children can use simple graphs, tables, charts and other graphic organizers to help make sense of data.  Here is an example of an activity from 'Doing Mathematics with Your Child, Kindergarten to Grade 6:  A Parent Guide':
Have your child draw pictures on a calendar to record each day's weather.  At the end of a week or month, make a pictograph showing how many sunny days, cloudy days and snowy days were in that month.
(A pictograph is a graph that uses pictures to represent numerical data.)

You can access the resource mentioned above by going to the link below: 

Doing Mathematics with Your Child:  Kindergarten to Grade 6  -  A PARENT GUIDE

We have also been learning about sorting in math.  The children have been sorting various collections of objects and learning how to describe the attribute (e.g., size, shape, colour, etc.) they used to sort the objects.

Here are a few photos of some of the sorting done in our class:

Home-School Connection:  There are many opportunities for your child to practise sorting at home, too.  Any time your child is doing a task that involves tidying up and/or organizing he/she will likely be sorting items in some way.  Help your child become aware of what they are doing by talking about the sorting he/she is doing.  E.g., I like how you cleaned up your toys! Tell me about how you sorted your blocks.  Did you sort the blocks by colour or by type? E.g., Help me sort the laundry.  Let's find all the socks in the basket.  How should we sort the socks?  



Patterning
We have also been learning about patterns.  More specifically, we have been learning how to identify, extend, create and describe repeating patterns.  We have learned how to identify patterns by looking for or listening for the repeating part.  We have also stressed that we know it's a pattern when we are able to predict what comes next.  

Here are some observations about patterns that were made by the children:
Patterns can repeat.
We can use colours to make patterns. 
We can also use shapes, sizes, actions, instruments, sounds, numbers, letters, people, cars, toys to make patterns.  
We can use almost anything!  
There are lots of different patterns.


Here are a few photos of some of the patterns that were made in class:

More recently, we have been noticing the patterns in numbers using a number chart.  Here's one example from a recent counting activity in our class:  When we count by 5s, we are skipping four numbers and then we say the fifth number.  We end up with this sequence:  5, 10, 15, 20, 25, etc.  Using the number chart, the children were able to make predictions about which numbers came next.  They also noticed that one column of numbers all ended in '5' and the other column all ended in '0'.
  

Your child will probably enjoy noticing patterns at home, too.