Kayla's Math Blog

Hey guys, For this blog we are going to be focusing on fractions. This week we did 4 different activities that involved how to solve fractions in different ways or ways to understand fractions. I was in a group lead by Rosanna Bernardo she was teaching how to make a fraction a decimal using a really neat activity that kids in any grade could use depending on the difficulty of the level. Whether you are introducing fractions for the first time or giving it as a refresher you can easily do it. Basically the object of the assignment was to take the fraction and change it to a decimal. Then you match them together. In order to change the fraction to the decimal you need to divide the numerator by the denominator and you will get a fraction. You can make this a simple matching game where everyone fraction has a decimal you need to find or make it more challenging by scrambling them all up and adding in more decimal answers in order for them to really focus on finding the right answer. It ...

Hey Everyone, So this week I wanted to focus on the activities we did as they were a learning tool for myself. The activity with the addition was probably one of my favourites since I understood it the most. When teaching addition and trying to get students to understand the use of number it can be most useful to put things in a tangible form such as the way it was done. Many students are hands on learners like myself. But having a tangible learning tool is the best way for some students to figure out okay so I can only use the numbers 0-9 after plugging it what I am given what numbers do I have left. If I am given the answer I need to find missing variables. If I am given the variables and have to find the answer than I know it must be within the numbers that are left to come up with the answer. I also like the idea of adding more amounts of the same number in order to come up with different variables for answers. By coming up with different variables to plug in it was neat to see h...

This week what really stuck out to my was the different strategies we can take on when solving different problems. 1. Trial & Error: when all else fails always try this one. If at first you don't succeed, try and try again. 2. Algorithms: lets look to see if there any possible algorithms for these problems to help us solve 3. Heuristics: many problems with have a general rule of thumb so lets see if there are any. 4. Insight: Read the problem thoroughly to see if you understand the question and if there is any information contained that could help you 5. The IDEAL strategy Identify the problem Define & represent the problem Explore the possible strategies or solutions Act on a selected strategy or solution Look back and calculate Who knew there were so many ways in which you could come up with an answer. Things have come a long way since the late 90's to early 2000's in which you could only get the answer one way or no way. This is the way it was taug...

Hello Teacher Candidates and welcome to my blog centered around the subject of mathematics. My name is Kayla Doucette and I am a teacher candidate in the J/I consecutive stream. As many of you may have heard math and I are not the greatest of friends but I'm hoping that by the end of our course EDBE 8P29 that maybe we can at least become acquaintances. I am trying to understand this as much as any one else so each week I plan to delve into the world of mathematics and explain to you the different outcomes of how we as teacher candidates are learning how to teach math to young students. It is a journey we all must face at some point in our schooling and why not do it together through a social forum. I hope that you will come back each week to check out my posts and engage with me along this journey through math.