Measuring: MATEAMIGO

Hello everyone!

In today's post I want to talk about some math books to use in our classes and complement all previous posts of this blog. The collection of books is called "The Mateamigos" and uses as a protagonist a few children to introduce us through different adventures in the world of mathematics.

There are two levels within the collection, one would be for fifth grade students and another for sixth grade students. Inside we can find many activities that mix the reality of everyday life with the adventures of these friends, as well as the history of famous mathematicians, as well as the things they discovered. It has another section of challenges and self-assessment so that students can evaluate the knowledge they are acquiring.

The units present a thread that depends on the course is one or the other, but they do not let us lose the sensation of being in the adventure with the Mateamigos. The difference it has with normal textbooks is that it is working all the blocks that are established in the curriculum in all units, so we would not stop giving any block if we do not have time to reach all of them at the end of the course.

In the fifth book he uses gamification to move from one unit to another, which will motivate the little ones much more. On the other hand, in the sixth book presents activities to work with Geogebra, thus making use of ICT.

As a last nuance, we can verify that it has a transversal character since it uses elements of other subjects such as history, natural or social to give the different contents.

I hope you enjoyed this entry!

Marta 

Measuring: TEMPERATURE

Hello everyone!

📽️ In today's post, we will comment on the following video: Érase una vez... Newton. This video lasts about 25 minutes. In this happens the same as the last one, we are not going to find out specific contexts talking about measurment issues, but we, as a teachers, have to think about a way to introduce the topic, and in the following lines I am going to give you some clues to do it. 

First of all, we must create a context where we explain our students that the video that we are going to see speaks about several important and transversal contents between subjects but at the end of it we will focus on one of them.

This time our friends talk about all the discoveries that Newton made.

In this class we will do games and activities to introduce the topic to the students. All the contents in the video are related with the history and physics subjects, so you can mix the classes so as to the students do not lose the motivation but to review and learn new contents. In addition, we will do 1 experiment, as in the previous classes.

⚗️ EXPERIMENT: before carrying out the following experiment we must explain to the students the concepts of temperature. For this we can use the different resources we have in class, such as ICT resources or textbooks.

Then we will ask the students to bring the different materials we need, which are cardboard and a candle that you can bring so that the students do not have to buy it.

The following video explains in detail how to make the spiral and the procedure to follow so that it rotates, but in class you can do the following for students to work with the measurement concept.
Separate the class into cooperative work groups and give the groups different lengths so that the spirals are of different sizes. On the other hand do not let all the students have a compass so that they look for different ways to create the spiral without using the compass but still have the requested length. Finally, let them decorate it as they want and try the experiment.

I hope you enjoyed this entry!

Marta 

Measuring: PEAS PART 2

Hello everyone!

📽️ In today's post, we will comment on the following video: Érase una vez... Mendel y los guisantes. This video lasts about 25 minutes. In this happens the same as the last one, we are not going to find out specific contexts talking about measurment issues, but we, as a teachers, have to think about a way to introduce the topic, and in the following lines I am going to give you some clues to do it. 

First of all, we must create a context where we explain our students that the video that we are going to see speaks about several important and transversal contents between subjects but at the end of it we will focus on one of them.

This time our friends talk about the genetic, and the Teacher will be in charge of explaining who Mendel was and what he did in relation with statistics.

In this class we will do games and activities to introduce the topic to the students. All the contents in the video are related with the history and natural science subject, so you can mix the classes so as to the students do not lose the motivation but to review and learn new contents. In addition, we will do 1 experiment, as in the previous classes.

After watching the video it is important to make an introduction in the topic, it is necessary to explain the contents that we will deal with. For that reason, we can use this web page where the statictis are explained, so we can explain in a brief introduction how we will do the exercises below.

⚗️ EXPERIMENT: the following proposed experiment can be done in different ways. In order to see what they do in class can be extrapolated to everyday life, they will carry out a survey within the school or the cycle they belong to. First of all, we have to lay the foundations of the research we want to develop, that is, to focus with the students on the subject of our study, such as how many students eat peas, how many of them eat honey, how many students have cultivated peas and how many of them know how to make recipes with honey, in this way we are introducing the video. It is here when different ways of collecting data enter.

On the one hand, the students can go through the questionnaire classes for their classmates to fill them out, but then I will propose two more innovative and fun ways to do it.

The first is that students make a form from the tool offered by Google, the rest of their classmates can fill it out through computers and tablets at school. This application also offers diagrams with the percentages and results of the answers.

The second option is to use the Plickers application to collect the data, students should only lift a card with a QR code that is scanned and pour the data onto a platform.

I hope you enjoyed this entry!

Marta 

Measuring: SURFACES AND VOLUMEN PART 2

Hello everyone!

📽️ In today's post, we will comment on the following video: Érase una vez... Galileo. This video lasts about 25 minutes. Unlike the last video, in this one we are not going to find out specific contexts talking about measurment issues, but we, as a teachers, have to think about a way to introduce the topic, and in the following lines I am going to give you some clues to do it. 

First of all, we must create a context where we explain our students that the video that we are going to see speaks about several important and transversal contents between subjects but that at the end of it we will focus on one of them.

This time our friends will not travel anywhere, but the Teacher will be in charge of explaining who Galileo was and what he did to be so famous in the world of mathematics, all this will take us to the topic of flat surfaces and volumes measurements.

In this class we will do games and activities to introduce the topic to the students. All the contents in the video are related with the history and natural science subject, so you can mix the classes so as to the students do not lose the motivation but to review and learn new contents. In addition, we will do 1 experiment, as in the previous classes.

After watching the video it is important to make an introduction in the topic, it is necessary to explain the contents that we will deal with. For that reason, we can use this web page where the measure, surfaces and volumen are explained, so we can explain in a brief introduction how we will do the exercises below.

⚗️ EXPERIMENT: for the different experiments that we are going to carry out, we must previously do an investigation with the students about what we are going to work on. In this case, we will tell the students that we are going to build a pendulum and a telescope like Galileo did, and for that we must look for geometric bodies we need, as well as their measurements and materials. First of all, we will build the telescope, in order to do that we can help ourselves from this web page where it is explained how to do it, also I enclose this video where it is also explained step by step how to create it.

From my point of view, it would be very interesting to create a tracking file where students can see the different steps of the process and we can give the measurements that each part of the telescope must have to work with them.

In order to create the pendulum we will follow the same process as with the telescope, creating a file, looking for the geometric bodies that compose it, as well as establishing some measures so that the students can work with them. In this case, we can change the measurements to kilometers, so that they must make conversions and work as previously studied. In the following web page you will find all the information to carry out the practice, and as always I also leave you a video where you can see the construction process. Moreover, in this web page you can find different exercises to do with the pendulum.

I hope you enjoyed this entry and you have accompanied us to the stars!

Marta 

📖 GLOSSARY: 

Pendulum: is a weight suspended from a pivot so that it can swing freely. When a pendulum is displaced sideways from its resting, equilibrium position, it is subject to a restoring force due to gravity that will accelerate it back toward the equilibrium position. When released, the restoring force acting on the pendulum's mass causes it to oscillate about the equilibrium position, swinging back and forth. The time for one complete cycle, a left swing and a right swing, is called the period. The period depends on the length of the pendulum and also to a slight degree on the amplitude, the width of the pendulum's swing.

Telescope: is an optical instrument that makes distant objects appear magnified by using an arrangement of lenses or curved mirrors and lenses, or various devices used to observe distant objects by their emission, absorption, or reflection of electromagnetic radiation. The first known practical telescopes were refracting telescopes invented in the Netherlands at the beginning of the 17th century, by using glass lenses. They were used for both terrestrial applications and astronomy.