Day 8: Trying to Nix the Tricks!

Today my sixers learned fraction division.  I am embarrassed/but happy to say this is the first year I taught it without the Keep Change Flip!
First we modeled it by drawing rectangles on graph paper, then we moved onto the actual procedure.  I showed them the division problem set up as a complex fraction.  Then we played around with writing equivalent fractions.  So far so good!
Next I asked them what was the easiest number to divide by and a lot of them said 2 but a few said 1.  So I threw out some problems like 1,784 divided by 2, 85,954 divided by 2, etc  then the same numbers by 1, they quickly agreed that 1 was much easier!  So I asked them to look in their notebook vocabulary section to see if they could figure out how we could make the denominator equal 1.  They flipped to the vocab section checked the definitions and all agreed the reciprocal is what they needed!  So we wrote an equivalent fraction using reciprocal of the denominator.  Once they had their answer I drew a box around the numerator in the problem.  It was pretty clear to see the procedure and they seemed convinced!  One student had heard keep change flip before and I kept saying "Yes! That's right, multiply by the reciprocal!
We practiced for a while and I really liked what I was seeing!  I am going to give an entrance ticket on Monday to make sure they remembered it.

We also got our IXL accounts ready today, some students already have gone on and started practicing which I love to see!

Oh I almost forgot something I tried with my homeroom, at the end of the day I handed out an index card to each student and told them to write down the name of the person they though should be nominated for Citizen of the Week.  They all voted and the nice thing is that they picked the person I would have picked as well!  In addition to picking my student of the week, I am also looking for the kids that don't get any votes.  There are some kids who have been reprimanded already this year and sent to guidance and they vice principal so they were obviously not voted for, I'm looking for the ones who are getting missed. There were definetly two names I was surprised I did not see.  I will make sure to observe how these kids behave next week.  Are they my sneaky ones I have to watch out for?  Or are they being shunned by their class?  Not sure yet, but I will be doing this every Friday.  The nice thing is our school does a lot of awards and this will definitely help me choose.  I've always had such a hard time with that!