Math
Grade fours practiced applying their knowledge of family of facts or factors to solve problems.
Good problem solving strategies include:
Draw a picture (equal groups or arrays)
Writing a multiplication / division sentence (equation)
Using a table or chart

Example #1:
You want to plant flowers in equal rows. How many different ways could you plant 24 flowers?

When you read equal rows, right away that may be a hint to use arrays.

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xxxxxxxx       xxx       xxxxxx       xxxx      xxxxxxxxxxxx     xx
xxxxxxxx       xxx       xxxxxx       xxxx                                   xx
                       xxx       xxxxxx       xxxx                                   xx
                       xxx                          xxxx                                   xx
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                       xxx                                                                     xx
                       xxx                                                                     xx
                                                                                                  xx
                                                                                                  xx
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                                                                                                  xx

You could have:
3 rows of 8 flowers
8 rows of 3 flowers
4 rows of 6 flowers
6 rows of 4 flowers
2 rows of 12 flowers
12 rows of 2 flowers

You could also have 24 rows of 1 flower or 1 row of 24 flowers
(Sorry the rows don't show up evenly on the blog)

Example #2
An amount of money under $40 can be shared equally amount 9 people and 6 people.
How much money could it be? Find two possible answers.

So solve this problem you must think of the 9 and 6 times tables or the MULTIPLES of 9 and 6.

Multiples are counting by that number.

6, 12, 18, 24, 30 36
9, 18, 27, 36

You see that 9 and 6 have 18 and 36 in common.

9 x $2 = $18 and 6 x $3 = $18 or $18 ÷ 9 = $2 and $18 ÷ 6 = $3

If you had $18, 9 people could get $2 each and 6 people could get $3 each.
If you had $36, 9 people could get $4 each and 6 people could get $6 each.

If you did not have a parameter placed on the problem ($40) this type of word problem will always work if you just multiply the two factors, 9 x 6 = 54, 9 people would get $6 and 6 people would get $9.

Example #3
What is the largest square you can make with 60 blocks?

This is actually a simple questions once you realize you don't have to use all the blocks!
Everyone should know their multiplication "squares". You get a square product when you multiply an number by itself.
1 x 1 = 1
2 x 2 = 4
3 x 3 = 9
4 x 4 = 16
5 x 5 = 25
6 x 6 = 36
7 x 7 = 49
8 x 8 = 64
9 x 9 = 81

If you look at list the greatest number number less than 60 is 49. So the largest square is a 7 by 7 square. 7 rows of 7 blocks with 11 blocks left over.

Example #4
5 out of 6 oranges are used to make orange juice. The remainder are sold fresh. For every 48 oranges, how many are used to make orange juice? How many are sold fresh?

Drawing an array or picture is a good way to visualize this problem. There are lots of ways to show this visually, but the key is recognizing that you are counting by 6 because you are arranging oranges into groups of 6.

x = oranges to make orange juice and o is the oranges sold fresh.

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You can see that there are 40 x's so that represents oranges that are used for orange juice. There are 8 o's, so that represents oranges that are sold fresh.

You could also think of 6 as the denominator in the fractions 5/6 (orange juice) and 1/6 (fresh).
An equivalent fraction for 5/6 is 40/48 (multiply numerator and denominator by 8) and an equivalent fraction for 1/6 is 8/48 (multiply numerator and denominator by 8)

Grade five we continued working with 2-digit by digit multiplication. Remember there are different ways to find the product. Try using as many ways as possible.

Example:
Standard Algorithm (pencil and paper)
    39
  x28
  312 (39 x 8)
  780 (20 x 39)
1092 (312 + 780)

Area / Box  Model

Solving an Easier Question / Reasoning:

39 x 28 is 39 groups of 28. If you know 40 groups of 28 you would just subtract 28 from your answer.

 28 x 40 is 28 x 4 tens. 28 x 4 is an easier product.

  28
x  4 tens
112 tens

112 tens is 1120

  1120
-    28
  1092

You could also multiply 39 x 7, double the product, then double that product because 1/4 of 28 is 7.

Tomorrow we will practice using our skills to solve problems.

Art
We are truly blessed to have the talents of Ms. Burchat. As a fine arts major, she shared her expertise in IMPRESSIONISM and painting with WATER COLOURS.
Here are some other paintings by our featured artist, Claude Monet.

I never knew that "squinting" at your painting could help!

Literacy

We continued our reading of the "Breadwinner". Something very traumatic happened to Parvana and her family in Chapter 2. We will talk more about it on Monday. We will also start building character webs of the main characters and a plot outline of the important events of the novel. It will help with summarizing. 

Religion

This week we enter the holiest week in our Catholic faith, Holy Week.

Today is Passion Sunday / Palm Sunday. What colour is warn by the priest today?

Throughout the week we will walk in the footsteps of Jesus. 

On Thursday we will reflect on the Stations of the Cross as school in the afternoon.

Reminders

• End of the year trip permission form and money. Please let me know as soon as possible if you are unable to make the trip with us on Tuesday, June 11th. 
• Shrek tickets, t-shirts and best wishes forms
• Circulatory system test on Wednesday
• Multiplication (division) test on Thursday