Category Archives: Math Journal Investigations

The Associative Property of Multiplication doesn’t get much credit. It is sort of a term that is thrown about with little care. More often than not students are finding the patterns and doing the work without realizing there is terminology to what they are doing. Today I gave a remote learning mini-lesson on just this.Continue reading “Associative Property of Multiplication”

For this week’s Math Investigation you are going to map the quickest route to the nearest body of water. Why? Because being around water makes us happy! “Water is changing all the time, but it’s also fundamentally familiar. It seems to entertain our brains nicely with novelty plus a soothing, regular background. Envisage yourself beingContinue reading “Water Makes Us Happy!”

We hear and use the term ARRAY often in a Math class. If I ask a student what is an array? There is a moment of pause, the tilt of a head, eyes squinting, looking up and down and anywhere there might a hint around the classroom. It’s like that box thingy, right? Length timesContinue reading “Arrays in Different Places”

Walking during Shelter-in-Place guidelines has been on the rise. If I were to run the numbers on the people that passed by window while I was teaching on Zoom, I could come up with a few different graphs. I could tally up: the number of people the number of dogs the number of kids vs.Continue reading “Math Trails”

Multiplication is the root of most all the Math you will encounter through 4th and 5th Grade. Knowing what factors pair up to get a product (answer to a multiplication problem) is a great way to make your work more efficient. Factors are the numbers being multiplied, and the multiple is the answer. For example,Continue reading “Art with Factors and Multiples”

Making spirolaterals is a way to bring Math and Art together. A spirolateral is geometric art made up of spirals and structures that are formed using a pattern of numbers, in the same way you would build code to get a robot to move on the Lightbot app. You can find patterns anywhere. We areContinue reading “Spirolaterals”

Help! I need to figure out how to place all the desks and chairs in our outdoor classroom next school year. With COVID-19 restrictions, Serendipity must have more classrooms available because we cannot fit more than 15 students in a classroom. Lucky for us, 4th and 5th Grade Math and Science will be taught inContinue reading “Floor Plan for our Outdoor Classroom”

This Math Investigation is coming to you a little early. I wanted you all to see what it will look like as you start your Math adventure this summer. Knowing prime and composite numbers are extremely helpful throughout Math, especially with division and fractions. To begin, we need to know what factors of a multipleContinue reading “Prime and Composite Numbers”

A Math Journal is a place where you can explore the ins and outs of Mathematics. It is a powerful resource to build a strong number sense, and a place for creativity and exploration. Math is everywhere, and being able to work through it and record observations of Math in everyday life helps to betterContinue reading “Math Journals”