In an SLS assignment, I asked students to explain the difference between Sentence A and Sentence B.
Sentence A: There are 2/5 as many blue marbles as red marbles. Sentence B: 2/5 of the marbles in a box are blue. The rest are red.
Some students’ responses are shown below:
Student YY: Sentence A:blue marbles:5 red marbles:2 Sentence B:blue marbles:2 red marbles:3
Student CC: Sentence A is saying that the blue marbles are 2units and the red is 5units. Sentence B says that 2 out of five is blue and 3 out of five is red
Student CO: In sentence A, the 2 refers to blue and the 5 refers to red. But in sentence B the 3 refers to red and the 2 refers to blue.
The above students have shown understanding. Indeed, Sentence A is comparing A and B. A has 2 units while B has 5 units.
Sentence B is referring to a fraction of a set. There are 5 units in total. 2 units are blue, so 3 units are red.
My Primary 4 students are learning about line graphs. Unlike picture graphs or bar graphs which represent categorical data, line graphs show trends or changes over time. I got the students to write creative stories based on the line graph below.
Here are some of them:
By Student A. B. James spent 5 hours playing computer games on Wednesday. He had a lot of homework on Thursday, so he only spent 3 hours playing computer games. On Friday, his mother told him to study for his exam in 2 weeks, so he only got to play 30 minutes on computer games. Then, it was the weekend. On Saturday, James had tuition, so he played 2 hours on computer games. On Sunday, James had no tuition, so he played 4 hours on computer games. He also had no tuition or homework on Monday so he also spent 4 hours playing computer games.
By Student A. M. Mr Bob ate 80 hamburgers in January, but in February, he was sick of eating hamburgers, so he only ate 60. In March, he was getting even more tired of eating the same old plain hamburgers, so he only ate 20 . In April , a new delicious and scrumptious hamburger came out, so he ate 50 of the new hamburgers . In May, the burger now came with fries and a drink, so Mr Bob bought the burgers more often. He ate 60 burgers in May. He was getting bored about eating the same burgers, so in June, he only ate 60.
By Student E. T. Mr Sam’s weight was 90 kg in October. So he did sit-ups and jogging for 30 minutes every day. In November, his mass dropped to 50 kg but he still continued. During the December holidays, he weighed himself and he was 40 kg. So after he weighed his mass, he ate lots of chips and never exercised anymore.
By Student J. L. Aunt Rapunzel’s hair was 100 cm long in the first week. She decided to cut it to 80 cm as it was very hard to wash her hair and it took 18 hours to dry. Her hair was still too long for her. Every time she walked, she had to hold up her hair, if not she would trip over it while walking and fall flat on her face. Thus, she cut it till there was only 15 cm left. After a year, her hair grew to 150 cm, so she had to cut her hair again – now it took exactly 24 hours to dry and she kept wetting her bed as she kept on sleeping after blowing her hair for an hour. She did not want to cut her hair, so it grew 1 cm longer after 2 days. She finally cut her hair on the next day. Her hair was 151.5 cm before cutting. She asked the hairdresser to cut her hair shorter. After cutting her hair, she had more than 10 cm but less than 20 cm left. The length of her hair in the end was an odd number. The number at the back was neither 3, 5, 7 or 9.What was the amount of hair she had left?
By Student L. A. Sally read 50 pages of her book on Monday. She helped her mother to do house home chores so she only read 40 page of her book on Tuesday. Sally had to go for tuition, so she read 20 pages of her book on Wednesday. Sally did her homework, so she read 38 pages of her book. Sally was bored on Friday and Saturday, so she read 40 pages of her book on both of the days.
By Student R One evening, Mrs Sugar Plum had 100 candies in a bowl, since it was Halloween. Mrs Sugar Plum decided to leave the bowl of candies outside her house because she was too lazy. She took a piece of paper and wrote, “Please take 5 candies each.” After writing that down on a piece of paper, Mrs Sugar Plum installed a security camera at the front of her house door where she could see the candies.
The next day (Day 2), she took her phone and opened the app for the security camera that she installed last night. Five children took the candies. So, there were 75 candies left. Mrs Sugar Plum was very happy when she saw the smiles on the children’s faces.
The next morning (Day 3), Mrs Sugar Plum went outside to see the candies. “HoLY mACAroNY aNd cHEesE wITh ChiLLy SaUCe iN aN oVEn!”she screamed. Mrs Sugar Plum ran quickly into her house and grabbed her phone. She opened the app she used yesterday and observed. “Raccoons!” she screamed with surprise. Mrs Sugar Plum felt like she wanted to scream at the raccoons but they were too occupied to hear Mrs Sugar Plums’ beautiful screaming. So, Mrs Sugar Plum took a pillow and screeched like a howler monkey. After counting the candies, she suspected that the raccoons took 30 candies from the bowl. There were 45 candies left.
On Day 4, when Mrs Sugar Plum was getting ready to go to work, she went to buy things from a convenience store. After buying what she needed, she went back home. Mrs Sugar Plum added the candies and poured the three packets of nuts into two big bowls.
The next day, Mrs Sugar Plum went to open the app for the security camera and watched the video. She was shocked when she saw that no one had taken the candy. Luckily, the raccoons were eating the nuts instead of the candies. Mrs Sugar Plum decided to add more candies. While she was adding up the candies, her neighbour Mrs Tan happened to walk by. “Halloween is over,” she said. In the end, no one ate the candies and Mrs Sugar Plum was happy.
By Student C. C. There was a plant named Bushy in my house. Bushy was so bushy that Mother plucked out some of his leaves. There were 20 leaves at first but after Mother plucked it, there were only 15 leaves left. The next day, Mother thought that Bushy was still too bushy. She plucked his leaves until he was only left with 2 leaves. Mother was shocked! She let Bushy’s leaves grow once more. It grew to 10 leaves. However, Mother still thought that 15 leaves looked most handsome on Bushy. So, she kept Bushy’s leaves at 15 forever!
Pea's Teaching Blog 