Welcome to 5th Grade Math!  We cover a wide variety of topics such as multi-digit multiplication and division as well as adding, subtracting, and multiplying fractions.  Hang on to your hats…it will be a busy year!

Getting to Online Student Edition - Click here to see directions for  accessing the student edition and printing homework

Multiplication Tutorial – Click Multiplication Tutorial to view and hear Mrs. Kosten demonstrate our Area Method for Multiplication

Division Tutorial – Click Division Tutorial to view and hear Mrs. Kosten demonstrate our Partial Quotients (Lucky Sevens) Method for Division.

Helpful Websites:                 

Family Math Activties – Click here for many at-home learning activities.  There are activities for all ages and all subjects but the math options are particularly good ones!

Awesome Web-Games! – Click here for student games specifically designed to meet our Michigan Standards.  The best games for November and December would be either “Multiplication” under 4th Grade  or “Place Value” and “Division” under 5th Grade.

Factor Tetris – Play a game of Tetris using your factor pairs

Mrs. Kosten’s Math Coaching Blog  – Click here for additional math links!

How Do We Learn Math?

Our brains must go through a few steps in order to truly learn math and not just memorize information. Memorized information is cannot be easily applied to new learning situations but going through these steps helps us understand the math reasoning behind our answers.

1.  The first step is to physically touch the math.  Our brains must experience touch in order to make sense of objects – that’s why babies put everything in their mouths!!  For example, counting 2 cookies on their plate and 2 cookies on their sister’s plate and seeing that the total is four cookies.

2.  The second step is to draw the math.  This step is to take the information from a physical nature into a symbolic form.  To most children, 2 + 2  is just symbols but drawing two cookies and two cookies means something.

3.  Only when a child has gone from physical objects then to drawings can a child finally make sense of the symbolic, or number, form.  2 + 2 requires a child to know that the symbol “2″ means two objects, “+” means to put them together, and then finally what the total would be.

While this example is simple, it demonstrates the same steps I will take your child through in more difficult math.  Without going through these steps when learning any new math such as division, decimals, fractions, or geometry, the child will not fully understand where the mathematical answer comes from and why the final answer makes sense.