Grocery Store Math (Decimals)

I am not even going to pretend, decimals are one of my least favorite topics to teach, specially adding and subtracting them. At the same time,  I am also not one to let my students know that, so after several days of practice, here's an in class project that we did.

Goal: To practice adding/subtracting and rounding/estimating in real world situations.

Students worked with a partner to complete this project.

Prompt:

Time frame:
5 minutes discuss what you are going to prepare/look through grocery store advertisements and circle what you will need/ discuss your reasoning
10 minutes to cut and glue
10 minutes to complete and discuss calculations
5 minutes to discuss questions

* 3 Pairs of students shared with the class


Rubric

The fun part, examples of student work!

Regions of the U.S.

We started out the year with learning about different regions of the U.S. This was a fun project students completed to learn about each region. It can be easily adopted to fit 4th grade when studying regions of a specific state. 

Here's my lesson plan:

TEKS:

Social Studies

5.7 Students understand the concept of regions in the United States (Geography)

5.8 Students understand the location and patterns of settlements and the geographic factors that influence where people live

Language Arts

5.20 Students understand the function of and use the conventions of academic language when speaking and writing. Students continue to apply earlier standards with greater complexity

5.22 Students spell correctly

5.26 Students organize and present their ideas and information according to the purpose of the research and their audience. Students are expected to synthesize the research into a written or an oral presentation

1. The teacher will introduce the concept of U.S regions through a KWL chart which will be followed by: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Kk_xtIVUQo (regions of the U.S. video)

  Imbedding language arts: First time, students will listen to facts

  Second time, students will listen to for adjectives used in the video. They will discuss with the group how these adjectives enhance the facts provided in the video.

  II. Students will be broken up into 5-7 groups (each group will be given information packet found in the drive with information on each region of the U.S.). More than 1 group can have the same region. Students will read their packet and take notes in their social studies notebooks. They will also make a list of at least 10 adjectives they found in the text as well as explain how these adjectives enhance the text.

III. Students will create a poster summarizing what they learned about each region (rubric in the drive). They will present their work and each group will take notes resulting in the class obtaining notes for each region.

IV. Students will take an open-notes quiz to show understanding of U.S. regions.

Here is my quiz . Students used their notes and posters around the room when they took the quiz. We practiced taking cornel notes together. 

Presentation rubric

Student work! (The best part )

These projects were so much fun and many of the students chose to do both a google slides presentations and a poster. They practiced presenting, took notes, and took ownership of their work!

Here's to a start of fun school year filled with project based learning.

-Always teaching, always learning

Mrs. Swanson <3

Exploring the U.S. Project Based Learning

If you know me well, you know I am all about projects. Projects make my classroom lively and exciting. This year is new and different. For the first time in a long time, I am departmentalized. I teach math, writing and social studies. This year is also my first time ever teaching 5th grade and I can genuinely say, I am lucky to have such a great bunch to start this journey with! This is also my first year teaching in Texas so of course I had to come up with a Texas based project. Over the summer, I contacted teachers from every state and began a post card exchange document which morphed into this project.

Goal : Students will learn about all U.S. states through conducting research,

connecting with classes across the country, and creating a model as well as

brochure of where they would like to travel. This project will incorporate social studies, math,
language arts and technology as well as will provide opportunity to
collaborate and present work to our 2nd grade partner class.

TEKS:

Social Studies

5.6 Student uses geographic tools to collect, analyze, and interpret data

5.7 The student understands concept of regions of the United States

5.17 The student understands important symbols, customs, celebrations, and landmarks
that represent American beliefs and principles and contribute to our national identity

Reading/Writing

5.21 Students write legibly and use appropriate capitalization and punctuation conventions and their
compositions

5.22 Students spell correctly

5.24 Students determine , locate, and explore the full range of relevant sources addressing a
research question and systematically record the information they gather

5.26 Students organize and present their ideas and information according to the
purpose of the research and their audience. Students are expected to synthesize the
research into a written or an oral presentation

Day 1

The teacher will read “Scrambled States of America”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jxI9V_LODRM

After the  read aloud, the teacher will have students participate in turn and talk activity.
They will discuss with a partner the following questions:

1. What do you think makes Texas unique?
2. What states have you traveled to or learned about? What stood out to you and why?

Day 1-2

Students will work in groups of 2  to complete Texas scavenger hunt (on blend or can be done
through google classroom). After completion they will discuss:

What’s something you learned about Texas? Was anything surprising? Why/why not?

Students will work with their shoulder partners to complete postcards for our postcard exchange
partners around the U.S. based on info they found in the scavenger hunt

Day 3-5

Students will randomly select landmarks or the teacher will pre select or they will choose based
on interest.

Students will complete landmark research

Day 6-10

Students will complete the landmark brochure and model project/ present to 2nd grade and reflect on
their experience with this project. The presentation will take place in a form of gallery walk where
5th graders will have a chance to show their work/ talk about it to 2nd graders as 2nd graders ask
questions*.

* Our partner class is a second grade classroom.

* We are currently in the middle of this project, getting ready to send out post cards, researching and
preparing for the brochure. I will add photos of finished work as soon as they are available!


Inspired teacher,

Mrs. Swanson