Marvelous Math

Hello Walton Family!

I can’t believe we are already almost halfway through first quarter! This year has been flying by. The sixth grade math students have been very busy and have smoothly made the transition to middle school.

In standard math the students are wrapping up their first unit on number sense in which they studied real number properties, exponents, perfect squares & square roots, order of operations, and patterns & sequences. Students have been learning how these math topics relate to real life situations. For example, students were asked if they had to wash the dishes every night for 2 weeks would they rather get paid $5,000 total or get $2.00 on the first day and double the amount each day for 2 weeks? Ask your child what option they would choose and why. After learning about exponents and patterns, many students quickly changed their decision. It was neat to see the surprised look on their faces once they used their new math skills to work through the problem and find shortcuts.

The honors math students are also discovering numerous ways math is used in everyday life in their unit on fractions, decimals, and percentages. On Tuesday the students set up a store or restaurant that they created the catalog or menu for. Seventh grade students visited their store or restaurant as the customers and the sixth graders waited on them, took their order, then calculated their discount, tax, and tip. The students worked very hard on their project, had many creative ideas, and some of their restaurants even served real food! One of the customers commented that some of the students should start up a business for real. 

In math class the students are constantly exposed to real life applications and I encourage parents to continue doing this at home. When you go out to eat have your student calculate the amount of tip you should leave, or have them figure out how much change you should get back when you go shopping.  I look forward to hearing stories from students about how they used math outside of school.

~ Mrs. Deering