One Drop at a Time!

Individually we are one drop, but together we are an ocean.  In my last post I discussed our sandbagging efforts, today I would like to add to that.  Over the past week our small community has come together to form an ocean.  People from all walks of life and all ages joined together to support one another.  Even the National Guard joined in the efforts to help build sandbag walls to keep the rising waters out of homes, roads, and businesses.

Why do I mention this in a math blog you ask?  Cooperative learning, that’s why.  There are many ways that students learn, but I feel that one important tool is to use cooperative learning by teaching math as a social activity.  Getting your students engaged in math early and allowing them to work with others to come to a consensus on an equation or problem, makes learning math fun.  If you get a chance, watch this video of a teacher who believes in using math as a social activity.  He has some really great ideas, especially one called the "fishbowl". 

 

 

The "fishbowl" is an awesome way to pull kids out of their comfort zone and get them to join in the learning efforts of the class.  For those that are shy and don’t normally share or answer questions this is a great opportunity to get them the experience of talking in front of a group.  Also, as a student in the audience watching the group work together and communicate, this a great way for those students to learn how others communicate and work together.

 

 

Cooperative learning can be a great tool to use in your classroom.  Give it a shot and see what you think.

Sandbags & More Sandbags

Lots of Manual Labor

Sandbags, sandbags, and more sandbags were all I saw for six hours today.  Our sandbagging efforts started at a house on the lake that needed a wall built to use as a break from the waves.  Once we were totally out of bags we were off to fill more bags with sand.  We filled each sandbag with 4 scoops of sand and each pallet had 20 sandbags on top.  Math is used in our everyday life activities without us even realizing it.  Students will always say, “How and when will I ever use this anyway?”  Well doing the math today, let’s just say we loaded 25 pallets.  How would we come to the total number of sandbags completed?  How would we figure out how many scoops of sand was used? 



Sandbag Machine AKA "Sand Spider" ~ Sandbagging went much faster once this machine arrived.

 

Although this problem may be simple, there are a number of ways we could teach our students to solve this problem.  First we know this:  there are 4 scoops of sand per bag, 20 bags per pallet, and 25 pallets.  Second we know that we need to decide what process we are going to use to solve.  Third write out the equation and find the answer.

Step 1 – 4 scoops/bag, 20 bags/pallet, 25 pallets

Step 2 – We could use the multiplication tree model, a set model, and/or array model.  For today I think I will choose the array model to demonstrate this problem.

20 Sandbags/Column                                                                                                     25 Pallets/Row

Step 3 –

20 sandbags per pallet x 25 pallets = ?

20 x 25 = 500 Sandbags

Now we need to take 500 sandbags and figure out how many scoops of sand we did.  To do this we can use the same idea, but remember the process and go from there.

4 scoops per bag x 500 bags = ?

4 x 500 = 2,000 scoops of sand

In the beginning, it did not seem like we did a lot of work.  When you stop and do the math you realize that 2,000 scoops of sand is a big workout and when you get a lot of people together doing this, one or two more people make a world of difference.  So when a student asks, “How will I use this in the real world,” you can help them think of ways that math is used in their everyday activities.

"The Great Sandbag Wall"

Good Luck & Enjoy Teaching

Shelly