We began our first week of shared math on Monday. This year, students will be working with the same group on foundational math skills for the first twenty minutes of our math block. This is a time for students to solidify algorithms and number sense. Many days will begin with a focused mini-lesson and then students will work independently in our foundation math notebook.
The second part of math is our exploration workshop. Workshops are designed to help children see the wonder of math. Groups are mixes of all three classrooms and change from week to week. Activities are designed to promote math conversations and have multiple entry points so that all children can participate and apply the math they know.
This week, we're looking at the ratios in the human body. Students have learned how to draw realistic faces using ratios and proportions. Today they looked at some of the ratios found in Leonardo DaVinci's Vetruvian man and measured their own bodies to see if the ratios proved true. We'll use ratios to draw human forms and then measure various "human" toys such as Lego figures, Playmobil, Barbi, Bratz and American Girl dolls to see what their proportions are compared to ours.
Through all this, we help the students learn and master the language and mathematical notation needed to communicate about ratios — and we have a lot of fun. Here's a video of today's lesson:
The Rookery 
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