Content Area: Math

 

Index: 4.1B Grade 5 CPI 4

 

Standard: 4.1 - Number and Numerical Operations

 

Strand: B - Numerical Operations

 

Cumulative Progress Indicator: 4 - The student will select pencil-and-paper, mental math, or a calculator as the appropriate computational method in a given situation depending on the context and numbers.

 

Grade: 5

 

Sample Activities:

 

·        Fifth and sixth grade students have calculators available to them at all times, but frequently engage in competitions to see whether it is faster to do a given set of computations with the calculators or with the mental math techniques they've learned.

 

·        Fifth graders make rectangular arrays with base-ten blocks to try to figure out how to predict how many square foot tiles they will need to tile a 17' by 23' kitchen floor.

 

·        Students are challenged to answer this question and then discuss the appropriate use of estimation when an exact answer is almost certain to be wrong: The Florida's Best Orange Grove has 15 rows of 21 orange trees. Last year's yield was an average of 208.3 oranges per tree. How many oranges might they expect to grow this year? What factors might affect that number?

 

·        Students play multiplication max out. Each student has a 2 x 2 array of blanks (in the standard form of a 2-digit multiplication problem) into each of which a digit will be written. One student rolls a die and everyone must write the number showing into one of the blanks. Once a number is written, it cannot be moved. Another roll-another number written, and so on. The object is to be the player with the largest product when all four digits have been written. If a player has the largest possible product that can be made from the four digits rolled, there is a bonus for maxing out.