Day 24: Adding, Subtracting and Multiplying Decimals

6th Grade Math Standards: 6.NS.3 Fluently add, subtract, multiply, and divide multi-digit decimals using the standard algorithm for each operation.

The Learning Objective: Add, subtract, and multiply numbers with decimals.

Quote of the Day: “Discipline is doing what you really don’t want to do so that you can do what you really do want to do.” - John Maxwell

Agenda:

1. Jumpstart - place value 
2. Review the homework from the previous class
3. Return previous week's weekly quiz and pass out this weeks for students that have not received it yet.
4. Frayer Model type of sheet with four different word problems done in partners
5. Color decimal grids for modeling multiplication with decimals
6. Multiplication of Decimal Notes
7. Let students begin the decimal multiplication homework

The Assessment: In the first class the word problems and the homework was used to assess students ability to add and subtract decimals. In the second class, I had students try problems from the notes independently and then had student checkers go around to verify answers and help students that had gaps.

Homework: For the second straight class we used the textbooks as part of the homework. This time the assignment came from page 205 #1-9, 13, and 17 out of the Glencoe book. It was important for them to skip certain problems since they included problems such as the distributive property which have not been learned yet. I did offer this particular problem as a challenge to the students who would need it.

My Glass Half-Full Take: The Frayer Model word problems went very well. It also was nice to get students moving out of their seats right in the middle of class. Walking around the room students demonstrated solid ability when dealing with numbers that showed only the ones place and annexing zeroes to include other place values. We also had a great conversation about how gas prices have a third decimal or even a fraction after the decimal.

One Thing to Do Differently: Tomorrow I have another opportunity to teach multiplication of decimals for 50 minutes or so. I believe this will be essential based on the difficulty students were initially confronted with after school today. I'm not sure how much coloring the decimal grids helped with my students, so I will confer with colleagues to see if this helped their lessons.

Link of the Day: I really like this lesson on the greatest NBA seasons presented by Yummy Math. I thought about incorporating it into my lesson tomorrow, but decided it was too quick of a turnaround at the end of the day to photocopy and tweak things to make it easier to do in twenty-five minutes. I'm definitely going to hold onto this as something to do in the future however.