Two Practice Problems (Fraction by a Fraction)

Today students began math class building two separate simple pyramids, the challenge was to design one so that it was 2/3 as big as the other. After talking over student solutions, we quickly reviewed the multiplication principles and skills from last week before digging into multiplying fractions by other fractions, and then fractions by mixed numbers. The focus has been on representing these problems with drawings, much harder than simply doing the multiplication, but central to the skills and understanding necessary to navigate word problems.

In Science, students learned how to take 2-Column notes, writing key words or phrases on the left and then filling in details, examples, and questions on the right. They put these skills to use on a dense, somewhat dry video on the abiotic factors of an ecosystem, but their skills were put to the test and they squeezed a lot of understanding out of that 'digital text'!

Homework tonight is two problems that will push them to apply the skills we worked on today - modeling the problem with drawing to see what it is asking, and solving the problem using drawings or fraction multiplication.