Identifying Fractions Using Tennis and 4 Square Courts

This week we asked the students to identify what 1/2 and 1/4 on the tennis court and 4 square court respectively by having them first draw the courts and then shade in 1/2 and 1/4. We took it a step further by drawing 1/2 and 1/4 on the courts in chalk. For 3rd-5th we talked about adding the fractions. We also drew a circle on the ground in the middle of the 4 square court and identified the 90 degree angles. We pointed out the real world applications of navigation, mapping. For another real life application of navigation we used the google sky map app to let the students view where the planets were located.

How Far Around The Baseball Diamond

First we talked about the shape of the baseball field. It is called a diamond. It is really a square tilted to one side. A square has 4 sides that are equal in length. I gave the students the measurement of the side of third to home base. They had to determine the length by looking on the ground and adding up the segments of ten feet that are spray painted on the ground. Once they determined the length of that side they can easily multiply by 4 rather than adding 40+40+40+40. That was their ticket to play. For the lower grades, 1 and 2, we just talked about how far the distance was from 3rd to home. We showed them the 10 foot segments that were painted on the ground. We talked about how to add the 10 foot segments together to get the answer. We talked about how to figure out the problem of solving for how far around all the bases but did not work out the problem.

Finding Mean and Range

Since Monday was a rainy day we had the students weigh themselves. We then arranged students from least to most weight. We had the 4th and 5th grade students find the mean or average weight of the class. On Tuesday we used the times of relay races to find the average time. To accomplish this the students had to figure out how many would go into each group. They also had to operate the stopwatch. After running three or four races we found what was the average time. For instance in one group the time for the total race was 46 seconds for a team of three. The students then had to figure out that they needed to divide 46 by 3 to get an average time of 15.3 seconds. We discussed that not every person ran the race in 15.3 seconds but rather that was the average time. We related that to the stats that are given on a football player ie. running back x ran the ball 5 times for an average of 4 yards per run.

Combination Directions and Degrees

This past week we began our discussion on combining the cardinal directions such as NW, SW, etc. We would ask the students to run to the southwest corner, etc. We would also tell the students to run to the center of the field, turn 90 degrees and then continue to the side they were facing. In our directions when the students were playing baseball we would ask them to turn so many degrees to the right or left. We also asked the students to identify the right angles they see out on the field such as right angle, obtuse and acute angle.

Map Making and Cardinal Directions

This week we talked about map making. We discussed how map making and diagramming are similar. One major difference is having the cardinal directions available. The students made a map of the baseball field. They labeled the north direction. On Thursday we actually drew a compass. We labeled the field and put directions into the instructions about where to run. We discussed the real life application of learning the directions such as where the sun rises and sets or if you were developing a field and the sun's influence on play. Some students have asked what the numbers are around the compass. We explained this in skateboarding terms of doing a 180 and a 360. We will explore the degrees more in the coming weeks.