Intermediate students want to take on greater responsibility for their own things and many students get frustrated when they don’t have what they need to just get to work. We are finding that students need to bring a pencil pouch at school so that they can take care of their materials.

Pencil pouches should have these labeled materials:

· An eraser

· An inexpensive pencil sharpener

with a container

· A small ruler (for 4^th and 5^th graders perhaps a protractor)

You may send new pencils or pens if you like, but we still have those from the start of the school year that we can give to students to keep in their pencil pouches.

Duct Tape and Ziplocks:

Pencil pouches needn’t be expensive. Kids can design their own pretty inexpensively with a quart-sized ziplock bag and some duct tape (duct tape comes in some REALLY cool patterns and colors now).

1. Start at the bottom of the bag. Cut a strip of tape exactly as long as the width of the bag. Put it on the bottom of the bag so that half of the tape is on the table and half is on the bag. Flip the bag over and fold the tape up onto the back.

2. Move to the top of the bag near the zipper. Cut a strip of duct tape slightly longer than the width of the bag and carefully put it on the bag; then flip the bag over and fold the ends of tape around the bag. Repeat on the other side of the bag.

3. Continue adding strips of duct tape until the bag is covered.

Bags can be decorated with more duct tape.

Double Digit Multiplication

Our current unit of study extends multiplication into double-digits (like 23 x 234) by using arrays to visualize the math problems and solutions.

Why use arrays? Arrays (or area models) ask students to use the commutative property and the distributive property as they solve multiplication problems. That means they are practicing algebraic thinking skills that they will need to be successful in middle school math and beyond.

Here's an example of what this looks like:

Students will also learn the standard US algorithm for double-digit multiplication on paper, but this taught as a reliable back-up way of checking their work... much like they would use an electronic calculator.