Ms. Amanda Simmons is thrilled with the effort and results she’s seeing in her 4th Grade students. For the past few weeks, the students have been immersed in a Fractions Block. Ms. Simmons first led her students through a progression of tactile and sensory experiences to make math fun and relevant (food, paper, sculpting, etc.). Gradually, she introduced increasingly complex pictorial and numeric problems all the while allowing students to travel through this progression at different speeds–some ready to move almost immediately to the numeric and others needing the support of pictures for longer durations.
This year’s goal is for all students to acquire a keen understanding of the meanings of numerator and denominator, adding and subtracting fractions with the same denominators, mixed and improper fractions, finding common denominators, and adding and subtracting fractions with different denominators. Students will also have extensive practice at multiplying and dividing fractions. In line with Common Core Standards and Waldorf Pedagogy, the emphasis will be on what multiplying and dividing fractions means and on picturing each process versus rote procedures.
By the end of the year, students will also become fluent in long division in order to divide by multiple digit divisors, while retaining short division for simpler questions. Ms. Simmons is thrilled with the contemplative, still environment that is emerging in the classroom as well as very impressive mathematical competencies.
