Tangram Puzzles

Greetings Grade 5's!

Now that we have wrapped up our Math unit on Data Management, we are going to begin a new unit on Number Sense and Numeration. This is a unit that I can guarantee is going to be a lot of fun, and we will have many interactive activities in class.

In class on Monday we are going to make our own Tangram puzzles and then use them for a series of Math activities. What’s a Tangram puzzle you may be wondering…?

A Tangram puzzle consists of seven pieces, called tans, which fit together to form a shape of some sort. The goal is to form specific shapes with the seven pieces. The shape has to contain all the pieces, which may not overlap each other.

A Tangram puzzle looks like this:

Please read this short paragraph about the origins of the Tangram puzzle and we will discuss it in class further.

Many years ago, in China, there lived a man called Mr. Tan. Of all his possessions, he most treasured an exquisite porcelain square tile. One day, he heard that the Emperor of China was coming to his village. To show his great admiration for and loyalty to the Emperor, Mr. Tan decided to offer his very precious tile to the Emperor as a gift. In great excitement, he began to polish his tile so that it would shine. As he handled the tile in different ways, to polish every surface, he dropped it. The porcelain tile broke into the seven pieces of the tangram puzzle. Mr. Tan was so very unhappy. As he wiped away his tears, he thought that if he could put the pieces back together, he would have the square tile again. Mr. Tan thought it would be easy to do, but it took him a very long time. While he was trying to form the square, he discovered lots of interesting two dimensional shapes. 

Please click on this link to see how we are going to make our Tangram puzzles in class.

Tangram puzzle pieces can be used to make many different shapes:

How many different images can you identify?

Can you guess what we will be doing in class with our Tangram puzzles?

Do you have any ideas about how Tangram puzzles are going to relate to our new unit on Number Sense and Numeration?

I am looking forward to hearing everyone's thoughts in class!

Sincerely,

Ms. Greenberg

Wind Power

Greetings Grade 5's!

Wow, what a fantastic in-class workshop we participated in on Wednesday! I learned a great deal about wind turbines, and I really enjoyed the opportunity to build and test my own. Our educator, Sarah, was so knowledgeable and I was grateful that our class was able to share in this together.

I would like everyone to complete a short follow-up activity at home over the weekend. Your task is to read this article on Wind Power from National Geographic online. The article is short, and once you have read it please answer these questions in your Science & Technology notebook:

1. Over the past decade, how much has wind turbine use has increased each year?

2. How many homes in the United States can the biggest wind turbines generate enough electricity to supply?

3. Why is wind energy is a clean and excellent source of renewable energy?

4. What are some complaints people have about wind turbines?

5. Do you think the advantages of wind energy outweigh the disadvantages? Why?

I hope everyone has a great weekend, and I am looking forward to discussing this article in our next Science & Technology class.

Sincerely,

Ms. Greenberg

Wind turbines on a cloudy day

Upcoming TREC Workshop

Greetings Grade 5's!

Next week we will participate in an in-class workshop with an educator from The Renewable Energy Co-operative (TREC). TREC is a non-profit, environmental co-operative that develops community-owned renewable energy projects and educates Ontarians about renewable energy, energy conservation and the community power model.

Our workshop focuses on the conservation of energy, and wind power as a form of renewable energy. We will be constructing miniature wind turbines and measuring the amount of electricity they can produce. We will test various blade constructions and learn about the importance of energy conservation as we attempt to power a high wattage versus a low-wattage light bulb.

This will be a great culminating activity for our Science & Technology unit on Conservation of Energy and Resources. I am certainly looking forward to having a chance to design, construct, and experiment with our own turbines!

Can anyone think of where in our city we have a wind turbine? Do you remember seeing one anywhere? Here’s a hint… have you ever gone to the CNE (The Ex) during the summer time with your family?

Parents, here is a link to an article in Professionally Speaking, the magazine of the Ontario College of Teachers, about Environmental Education and TREC workshops in the classroom – please have a read to learn more about our upcoming in-class workshop.

Students, we will need some materials from home, if you can gather them for class on Wednesday that would be greatly appreciated! We will need an assortment of:

·  High and low wattage light bulbs

·  Wire

·  Batteries

·  Switches

·  Wood boards

·  Card Stock

·  Popsicle sticks

·  Tape (masking tape, electrical tape, duct tape, scotch tape)

Anything that you can bring will be greatly appreciated!

Sincerely,

Ms. Greenberg

TREC school programs co-ordinator Erin Woods teaches Grade 5/6 students from Earl Beatty Junior and Senior PS to build wind turbines

The Three Ways To Find The Average...

Greetings Grade 5's!

I have come across a great game that you can play to sharpen up your data management skills! After marking your unit tests, I can see that some students are still have a bit of trouble remembering how to find the mean, median, and mode of a set of numbers. I think that for many of you the difficulty is remembering which is which...

A little review:

Data Set: 2, 2, 3, 5, 5, 7, 8

The Mean
To find the mean, you need to add up all the data, and then divide this total by the number of values in the data.

Example: Adding the numbers up: 2 + 2 + 3 + 5 + 5 + 7 + 8 = 32

The Median

To find the median, you need to put the values in order, then find the middle value. If there are two values in the middle then you find the mean of these two values.

Example: Put the numbers in order from least to greatest:
 2 , 2 , 3 , (5) , 5 , 7 , 8

The middle value is marked in brackets, and it is 5.

The median is 5

The Mode

The mode is the value which appears the most often in the data. It is possible to have more than one mode if  here is more than one value which appears the most.

Example: The data values: 2 , 2 , 3 , 5 , 5 , 7 , 8

The values which appear most often are 2 and 5.
They both appear more time than any of the other data values.

The modes are 2 and 5

Try playing the game below to help reinforce what is the mean, median, and mode of a set of numbers...

I hope you enjoy playing this game and reviewing at the same time!

Sincerely,

Ms. Greenberg

If you enjoyed this game, Cool Math 4 Kids has even more great math games - check it out!