My math reflections

By Mendenhall1

  • Why we need right answers

    Today we thought about why it's important to try to find correct answers in math class. Most of us thought it was to get a good grade, but then we started to talk about things like money, and measuring, and medicine. We all had times where we had a wrong answer in real life and it made problems for us, like we didn't bring enough money to the checkout, or we tried to put too many things in a bag that was too small. Our big idea was that math actually means something in real life.

  • Zeros and decimals

    Today I learned that zeros and decimals are important because they can change the value of a number. We watched a funny clip from the Muppet Movie where one of the characters squished a fly on the price tag of a car that cost $ 1200 and changed it to be only $ 12.00. I never really thought about how the decimals can change a number before.

  • Lining up decimals and zeros

    In math today we explored how changing the decimal place when we are adding can change the answer. For example, 5.72+4.7 is easier to add if you write the numbers vertically and even put a zero after the 4.7 in order to help you see how the numbers should line up. I added it wrong the first time, because I'm so used to lining up numbers on the right side of the page. My wrong answer was 6.19, but the right answer was 10.42.

  • Multiplying is adding equal groups

    I used to just memorize my times tables, but today we used little blocks to multiply. We had to make equal groups, and then we saw that multiplying was the same thing as adding the same number up "multiple" times. We also talked about how "multiple" means more than once. Like, my mom yelled at me multiple times this weekend because I wasn't doing a good job cleaning my room.

  • Multiplying large numbers

    Today we learned how to multiply "multi-digit" numbers. That means that each number had more than one "digit" in it. For example, we did 52x15 to see how many weeks it takes from being born until turning 15. You have to take the bottom right number times the top right, then times the top left. Then we start another answer row below that, with a smiley face (a zero), then use the bottom left number times the top right, then times the top left. Then we add the answers together to get the total.