We went to the southern hemisphere during our annual Cultural Arts Festival. Australia to be exact! You can read a previous post and look at some of our photos! It was such an amazing day!  At one of our stops while we were there, we went to the Sydney Opera House and listened to a lady sing beautiful opera. At the end of her show, she lead us in song. You can click on the link below and watch and listen to us sing along in the LAND DOWN UNDER!

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The students began learning about the relationship between mixed numbers and improper fractions. These numbers have the same value, look the same in a picture format, but have different purposes when using fractions in everyday life. The students made up three mixed numbers that had a denominator of four and used their math skills to change the mixed number to an improper fraction.  After looking at Piet Mondrian’s work, we created art like his by using  the three primary colors and bold lines to create our fraction art. We used a wax resist technique that caged our primary watercolors in blocks of fourths. Can you see the correlation of the mixed number and the improper fraction? We can! Look at the yellow area of the art below. Can you name the mixed number? Can you rename it as an improper fraction?

                              Mixed number: 2  1/4    and    Improper fraction: 10/4

Today we traveled to the land down under during our annual Nora Davis Cultural Arts Festival. This is a day of fun where students rotate through a variety of stations to learn about a particular culture, which this year was Australia. At the food station students got to sample Calamari, ham and pea soup, Vegemite on toast, and Tim-Tams. During the music station, the students learned about opera and The Sydney Opera House. At the drama station, students learned about Aboriginal story telling and dance. Students created Aboriginal art and told stories on boomerangs using symbols during the art station. Students learned to throw boomerangs at the game station and learned Aboriginal dances during the dance station. At the carousel station, students rotated through different areas of Australia including the Great Barrier Reef, the Outback, and Gold Coast, Australia. It was a great day of learning and fun for all students!

The students had the wonderful opportunity to experience the literary works of Roald Dahl! Each class read a different book and created a class reading fair board. The children had a wonderful time coming up with the ideas for the boards and watching their masterpiece unfold before their eyes.

This colorful board belongs to the children in Mrs. McDougle’s class.

Mrs. Watts’s class did a great job on The Magic Finger!

Mrs. Schipke’s class did an awesome job on The Twits!

We have started division! The students worked in their center groups to solve division word problems while looking at art prints.  They used the manipulatives that coordinated with each of the prints to solve the problems, answer basic questions, create number lines and used the repeated subtraction method.

Dr. Williams held a multiplication bee for the fourth and fifth grade students. Fifteen students out of the fourth grade, five per class, were chosen through a timed assessment to compete in the Nora Davis Multiplication Bee. These fifteen students competed in another one minute drill, and the top five were chosen to go on to the district competition as well as compete in a head to head run off for the title of Nora Davis Multiplication Champion. Donovan Haskin came out on top as the champion after a very spirited showing of great multiplication fact knowledge from all competitors. The top five will go on to compete in the Laurel School District Multiplication Bee to be held on Thursday, November 5th at 10:00 am at Central Office. Shown above are the top five Nora Davis Magnet School multiplication bee competitors that will move on to the district multiplication bee. From left to right are Jahziyah Carpenter, Kennius Jenkins, Donovan Haskin (Nora Davis Multiplication Bee Champion), Kermit Oville, and Tyler Taylor.

We had a wonderful time participating in the Choctaw Days celebration at the Lauren Rogers Museum.

During the dancing portion of the program many students were chosen out of the audience to dance with the dancers.

They learned how to play stick ball, a popular Native American game. We also learned how the Choctaw Indians made many different types of baskets that served many different purposes

It was such a great experience, and lots of fun watching the students learn about another culture!

We went on our first field trip! We went to the Mississippi State University Riley Center in Meridian to see The BFG (The Big Friendly Giant) play. We will be doing a study about the author, Roald Dahl, in a couple of weeks, so we were so excited to have the opportunity to see a production of one of his famous works! We were so thrilled to watch this comical play in this beautiful theater.

Students who met their AR goal for the first nine weeks were treated to a block party as a reward. The street in front of the school was blocked off and students got to draw with sidewalk chalk, dance, play games, and more. Thanks to all the students who worked hard to meet their goal. We want to see everyone at the next reward party which will be watching a movie in your pajamas at school – FUN! Click on the link below to see a video of students dancing at the block pARty.

AR Block Party Dance

This week the students have been exploring various strategies for multiplying 2 digit numbers by a 1 digit number. To illustrate our multiplication problems we took this time to explore the concept of symbolism in art . Students were encouraged to use symbols to represent their numbers, and colors to represent place value. Using the concept of a monochromatic color scheme while using warm or cool colors, students created works of art that show their ability to multiply and their creativity.

Can you tell what math problem is being represented by the cool colors of this monochromatic color scheme? If you guessed 36×4 you are correct! Students also illustrated with a different shape how they carried over a number to another place value.