A Week in Fractions:

Monday: 6/7 students present.

Tuesday: 6/7 students present.

Wednesday: 5/7 students present   

Thursday: 6/7 students present

Only a fraction of students filled the room this week, as several were out with the nasty creeping ick (which has already knocked 3/4 of the Hirsch faculty and staff on our behinds). Stay healthy, folks; this virus is no fun. 

 

 9/9 pizzas baked to poison the Pizza Monster:

Bo, Tani and Paul combined fractions, measurement and cooperative play to defeat the nefarious Pizza Monster.

Here's the story:

The Pizza Monster is invading the cities of Atlanta and Decatur to devour all of our delicious pizzas. It is up to the fearless trio to defend the city from total devastation by defeating this hungry creature. How? 
Our heroes decided that they would poison their evil foe (with poisonous pizza, of course).
First, given only pieces of the fraction puzzle (halves, thirds, fourths and eighths), each child assembled 3 whole pizzas. Then, they were told to build an oven big enough to bake all 9 pizzas at once. Above you see the box they chose as the oven. After adding three pizzas to the oven, they realized that--oh no!--the oven is not big enough to hold all 9 full pizzas!  Due to some quick and creative thinking, they figured out how to extend the oven with bricks to fit all pizzas. Phew, just in time! Now, sprinkle a little poison on top...quickly, though, because here comes that nasty, slice stealing monster!!! One by one, the monster stole the slices, completely mixing up the pieces. Not to worry, though, because in the end, the Pizza Monster was destroyed and all of the stolen pieces were put back together to form 9 whole pizzas!

6/7 completed Fraction Books:
Below are some of the questions posed. We asked the kids to illustrate and match the sentence to a fraction card. Look for these books to come home next week.

Jakob had a red lollipop. Oliver, Erin, Paul, Annabella, and Tani had yellow lollipops.

Which fraction shows how many red lollipops?

Which fraction shows the number of boys in the class?
Which fraction shows the number of girls in the class?

Bo and Annabella had a pullout with Sarah A. The other students played a game.

Which fraction shows how many children had a pullout?

 Which fraction shows how many students played a game?

5/7 artists make cool paper plate pizzas:

The "sauce" is glue mixed with red food coloring

 

 Friday: HOORAY! 7/7 students here! AND we're gonna bake pizza! 

What could go wrong? Surely everyone will want to make pizza, right?

Wrong. It was a bit of a tough morning. Perhaps we were feeling a little off about not having a full class all week. Perhaps some of us hadn't fully recovered from being sick. Whatever it was, it was not the right morning to make pizza. But, the ingredients were fresh, and I figured my enthusiasm over pizza baking would catch on. 

Wrong, again. 

Fortunately, a couple of students stepped up and helped make the dough. Another students thought it looked pretty fun and ended up helping make a second batch. 

Waiting, waiting, waiting for the dough to rise

 

3/7 help make the dough. 3/7 are not interested, 1/7 is using a tortilla from home as the crust.

By the time the dough had risen, the rest of the gang was feeling up to the pizza making task. Well, almost all of the rest of the gang.

 

6/7 make their own delicious personal pizza. 1/7 decides that pizza making is not for him, and sticks to his lunch from home.

Happily, after a morning of blood, sweat and tears (subtract the blood and add one minor burn on my hand. Oven mitts: Apparently they serve a purpose.) 6/6 thoroughly enjoyed every bite of their pizza. 

A bit of a rocky week, but as always 100% learning and fun.

 Though I'm not gonna lie...3/4 of a bottle of wine was consumed Friday night between the hours of 8 and 10. OK, it was 4/4. But who's counting?