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Re: My students hate TERC, help!
Posted:
Oct 18, 2002 4:02 PM
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Rachel,
Have your fifth grade students used any Investigations units at
previous grade levels?
I have used the grade five units with students who have never used
Investigations before--and it is very challenging for exactly the
reasons you gave. Many of the activities and routines rely on the
habits-of-mind developed at the younger grades. In fact, with fifth
grade students who are "new" to this program I believe that
"Mathematical Thinking at Grade 5" and "Building on Numbers You Know"
are two of the most difficult units.
I had more positive student feed back from units in strands other than
Number: Picturing Polygons and Containers and Cubes were a big hit!
One suggestion while you are working on the Number units is to make
sure to add Ten Minute Math activities to your day, especially the
activities involving geometry, data and probability (such as "Quick
Images" and "What is Likely?". You'll find them in each unit right
before the Student Sheets, or (even better) altogether in the book
"Ten Minute Math" (from Dale Seymour).
Another suggestion is to use some of the grade 4 units. You'll notice
a grade band on the top of these units indicating that they can be
used in grade 4 or 5 (incase you need some justification). You may
want to use "Arrays and Shares" to support the grade 5 number units.
Again back to my experience, for fraction work I used the grade 4
"Different Shapes, Equal Pieces" before the grade 5 "Name that
Portion.
Best of luck engaging your students!
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