Mastery is the Goal

Jaden working at the board.

Are you good at math? Do you actually understand what you're doing when you do it?

Sister Patrice is big on "understand what is really happening" and "then learn the algorithm." (The algorithm (al-gore-rhythm) means what you write down to figure things out.)

The pink arrow shows our "Fraction of the Day" display

So, we started with pizza and candy bars, then sets of objects, then fraction bars, then number lines, then drawing shapes, then drawing arrays. We did "Fraction of the Day" for twelve days. We kept adding new things every day. Almost all of this was brand new for us. We really worked hard. And now, every single one of us gets it pretty well. 

• Fractions from arrays and fractional parts
• Fractions on number lines
• Comparing fractions
• Proper fractions
• Improper fractions 
• Mixed numbers (making and unmaking them)
• Reducing fractions to lowest terms
• Adding and subtracting fractions with like and unlike denominators
• Multiplying fractions times a whole number, times another fraction
• Finding a fractional part of a number (What is 1/3 of 30?)
• Going from a fraction to a decimal to a percent, and back
• Story problems (featuring us) that use fractions to solve

Some of us got mastery! That means we got 90% or higher on doing it without any help. Don't worry. If you got 80% it is still good. You just need more practice. If you get less than 80% it just means you are still learning it. For example, three right out of four = 3/4= .75= 75% means you are still learning it. Keep going. 

Hoksina figuring out decimals and percents
from a fraction.

If you get smaller than 75%, it just means Sister Patrice has to find a different way to teach it. 

Sometimes she says "Stop." So then we have to learn something else before we get to it. Like with division of fractions. We waited on dividing fractions because we had to take a detour to review division. Some of us never got division before. But, 1/4 of us already have mastery of division. 1/4 is 25% of us, by the way!

But tomorrow we will learn "reciprocals" and then we will learn how to divide fractions, too.

Here is one of the story problems we had to solve with fractions. Do you know how to get the answer? Or is his horse going to starve?