Wednesday, June 20, 2012

Student Work

Now that school has been over for a few weeks, I'm reflecting back on the past year with fondness.  It was a good year with so many sweet and smart students.  My first graders wrote me many wonderful and adorable notes and drew some awesome pictures throughout the year, but I can't save them all.  Here, for your viewing pleasure, are of some of my favorites. 

This is a picture of me and one of my students, painted by the student.  I love this because it was given to me on back-to-school night.  That means he was able to paint me before meeting me.  I love that.

This is a piece of a typical homework assignment.  The great part about it was that when this student turned it in, he pointed to that blue one on the end, and said, "That's the POWERFUL one, Teacher."

Translation:  Dear Mrs. Reyes-Cairo, 
 Thank you for the pumpkin.  It was too smooth.  Thank you for that pumpkin.

We went to Hee Haw Pumpkin Farm for one of our field trips.  This student got sick and couldn't come, so I brought her back a pumpkin.  She really appreciated it.  I love my glasses and long ponytail in the picture.  Very accurate at that time.

Some of my favorite notes.  Isn't that an adorable unicorn family?  And this unicorn is fabulous.

I love my students so much to 100 to 200 and 432100 right back.

I love my blue hair in this note.

Being picky is a good thing.  And look at that handwriting!  Pretty good, right?  My students were such great writers by the end of the year last year.  I can only hope they keep reading and writing over the summer.  I love first graders.  It's great to be a teacher.

Right now I'm attending some teacher training for math, and it has been a good reminder of what I learned in college. If you're into math at all, here is an interesting problem for you to solve.  "According to one study on 6 out of 85 preservice teachers at the elementary school level solved this problem." Says Kristie J Newton, author of Mathematics Teaching in Middle School, 2010.  But, don't be intimidated.  She goes on to explain how surprising that was because the concepts addressed are really very simple and there are multiple ways to find the correct answer.  OK... Here is the problem:

Jenny was mixing herself a glass of chocolate milk (Which by the way she enjoys a strong “chocolaty” taste.) when her friend Kevin remarked,
“You certainly have enough chocolate syrup in the glass.” Kevin of course was looking for a glass of his own, so he could make some chocolate milk.
         Jenny responded to Kevin, “I only have a third of my glass filled with chocolate syrup.”
By this time Kevin had found a glass, that was twice the size of Jenny’s, and he said, “Well I am only going to fill mine one-forth of the way with syrup.”
“But Kevin, your glass holds twice as much!”
         Kevin, knowing that Jenny really liked “chocolaty” tasting milk said, “Jenny, tell you what, lets combine our drinks into a larger pitcher, and then split the whole amount.”


Your Task:
         Determine the amount of chocolate syrup in the combined larger mixture. Will the new mixture be more “chocolaty” or less “chocolaty” tasting than Jenny’s original glass of chocolate milk?

Well, that was fun, wasn't it?


1 comment:

  1. Your students are adorable. The unicorn drawings are especially my favorite! And their handwriting is fantastic. :)

    Alright, so I tried to solve it. Don't judge, I haven't taken a math class in 8 years...

    The new mixture was filled halfway with chocolate syrup, so it was more chocalaty than Jenny's original glass of milk.

    Did I get it right?! O.o

    ReplyDelete