Mixed Fractions: PIZZA TIME

Hi class,

Tomorrow is the day, the day we have PIZZA!

                                                 

I have some awesome news, and a new math problem I need help with. The pizza store made too many pizzas for our class alone to have. They made us 2 and ½ pizzas. 

To review what we learned about mixed fractions I have included a short summary.There are two ways to represent these as a fraction that include whole numbers. The first is to show them as something called a “Mixed Fraction” the second is to show them as an “Improper fraction”.  We will be working with Mixed Fractions only during this week.

Do you know what two and half pizzas look like?

       

Do you know how to represent these as a fraction?

The picture below shows 1 whole and ½ of another whole. We learned a whole is when the denominator and the numerator are the same number. For example the bottom left image is a whole which can be represented as 10/10. There are 10 parts and all 10 are colored in.   Instead of writing 10/10 we can write it as just 1. Since the other is a ½ fraction, not a whole we still write it as ½ .  We will now write the faction down as 1½, which we call a mixed fraction, because it contains a whole and a fraction beside one another.

So how many classes do you think 2 ½ pizzas can serve?

As a bit of a challenge to help prepare you for next weeks lesson on improper fractions and mixed fractions I have included the following video. Enjoy!

Using the ‘Matching Math Mixed Fractions’ game, practice your understanding of mixed fractions.  Let me know how you do, and I look forward to eating pizza with you tomorrow!

Plants and the Food Chain

Grade 3's !!!!,

Last month we learned about plants and how they grow. Plants are very important to the world as they provide us with oxygen and food.

Plants provide us with all the nutrients we need to grow and become strong. We can eat there leaves, roots and fruits.  All animals eat plants, even those animals that eat meat only. Animals who eat only meat are called carnivores or secondary consumers.

Have you ever seen a cat or dog eat grass?

The picture below is a called a food chain. The food chain shows that plants are at the bottom and animals who only each plants are in the middle. Animals who eat only plants are called herbivores or primary consumers.

You might be asking yourself, do plants eat anything? We learned last month that plants take there nutrients from the soil and make food using sunlight. The soil gains nutrients through the process called of decomposition. We will be discussing this further in class.

Now for a fun learning video. The video is all about food chains.

Once you have completely watch the video, I challenge you to play  Chain Reaction Game which will test what you have learned from the video.

Have fun and let me know how you do. Next week we will start talking about the food chain in class.