Day 13: Greatest Common Factor Goodie Packages

6th Grade Math Standards: Find the greatest common factor of two whole numbers less than or equal to 100 and the least common multiple of two whole numbers less than or equal to 12. Use the distributive property to express a sum of two whole numbers 1–100 with a common factor as a multiple of a sum of two whole numbers with no common factor. For example, express 36 + 8 as 4(9 + 2). MA.4.a. Apply number theory concepts, including prime factorization and relatively prime numbers, to the solution of problems.

Objective: Find the greatest common factor of a number in a real-world context

Quote of the Day: “No error should go uncorrected…What Wooden wanted was correction, not critique, and the difference is that critique involves telling a participant how to do it better but correction means going back and doing it again, and doing it better – as soon as possible…So critique – merely telling someone she did it wrong – doesn’t help very much. If you do it right once and wrong once, it’s encoded each way equally in your neural circuitry. It may matter little which one happened first. If you are correcting, then correct in multiples.” – Doug Lemov

Question of the Day: "Is 3 ok for the greatest common factor of 18 and 45?" "Why do 12 and 18 have the same number of factors when 18 is the bigger number?"

Agenda:

1. Visual Pattern #7
2. QSSQ 
3. Review HW/Pepper
4. Assign new homework
5. Goodie Packages 
6. Work on homework

Assessment: Checking the homework, the only thing to look for is the problem that asks students to look at 28, 42, and 56. It's a great problem to see if students are listing factors in pairs and utilizing the divisibility rules.

Glass Half-Full: The goodie packages as I said last year when I used this manipulative real-world activity for the first time felt like my classroom. Controlled chaos. As Robert Kaplinsky would note in the link of the day, it was an opportunity for students to apply the concept that we had been using. The students were very excited, but it was highly beneficial to review with the students how to open the bags. I ended up putting 30 straws or 36 straws in each bag as well as 12 peppermints, 24 lifesavers, and 18 lollipops. The straws were very cheap, which is why I included them. I told the students to simply think of them as Pixie Stix.

I was really glad at the amount of time it took students to recognize what needed to be done. We had been working with greatest common factor for virtually three math classes, and students were still trying to decipher what steps they needed to take to get the most possible people to their birthday parties. To throw them off a little I put 12 Ziplock bags in each group. This forced students to think that they could fit everything into these 12 bags.

Regrets: I had students writing the work in their journals, but I would have preferred some exit ticket reflection question.

Homework: GCF practice with the option of the challenge problem that we did yesterday as a substitute.

Link of the Day: Love the way that Robert Kaplinsky translates the meaning of rigor according to the standards on this post.