Content Area: Math

 

Index: 4.1A Grade 6 CPI 1

 

Standard: 4.1 - Number and Numerical Operations

 

Strand: C - Estimation

 

Cumulative Progress Indicator: 1 -  The student will use real-life experiences, physical materials, and technology to construct meanings for numbers (unless otherwise noted, all indicators for grade 6 pertain to these sets of numbers as well).

·        All integers

·        All fractions as part of a whole, as subset of a set, as a location on a number line, and as divisions of whole numbers

·        All decimals

 

Grade: 6

 

Sample Activities:

 

·        Students each develop questions, the answers to all of which are equivalent to some target number. For example, if the target number is 24, students may ask the following questions:     

o       What is 8 x 3?

o       What is (-25) - (-49)?

o       What is 52 -1?

o       What is 3 more than the sixth triangular number?

o       What is 1 less than one-fourth of 100?

o       What is the smallest positive number with 8 factors?

 

·        Students continue to refine their concepts of fractions using all available models to answer questions like:

o       Is 1/4 always larger than 1/8?

o       Is 1/4 of every pizza larger than 1/8 of every other pizza?

 

 Issues that point out the importance of defining the unit are special topics for discussion.

 

·        Students use two-color counters to construct models of the set/subset meaning of fraction. You might ask: Given 3 red counters in a set of 12, what are the equivalent fractions that represent the reds as a part of the set?

 

·        Students also use two-color counters to model and begin to make sense of positive and negative integers. In this system, a positive 1 is represented by one color and a negative 1 by the other. Students determine the value of a pile of counters by pairing up counters, one of each color, setting aside all pairs, and counting the remaining counters.

 

·        Students read Shel Silverstein's poem A Giraffe and a Half and discuss how to describe an amount that is more than one whole but less than two.

 

·        Students read The Phantom Tollbooth and discuss the relationships between decimals and fractions in the book. For example, Milo meets half a child (actually, .58 of a child since the average family has 2.58 children).

 

·        Students construct a time line to scale to show the history of the earth. Significant periods and events are shown along the line with numbers reflecting the number of years since the earth's beginning.