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STOCK MARKET FRACTIONS

Prior to the holidays, students used the newspaper ad sections for an Economics/Consumerism Unit (“Be A Smart Consumer and Save”). To follow that, my students are currently learning about the Stock Market. They are learning how Stock Market data is read, and what it means in the business section of the paper. Students are learning how the daily gains and losses are written in fractions. In studying fractions, students have the opportunity to use the Stock Market pages to work with adding and subtracting fractions. This also allows the students to use calculators to calculate how much a stock would be worth according to how many shares they might buy or sell.

This unit will continue as students will be receiving mock checking accounts and will learn to write checks and keep a checkbook balance. Students will be able to use their Dolphin Dollars (given as rewards for being good citizens in our school), saved in self-decorated plastic “Piggy Banks”, to work out an imaginary budget and learn to write checks, etc.

The stock market page will also be used as their “bank account” balances grow and they are able to simulate purchasing and selling stocks using the daily figures reported in the business section of the newspaper.

SUPER BOWL MATH

With the upcoming Super Bowl Football Game, my students used the newspaper to learn about Roman numerals. Since this was Super Bowl XLI (41), we read sports articles leading up to the game and made note of the use of Roman numerals to denote which Super Bowl Game was being discussed.

Through a lesson on how to write and use Roman numerals, students learned how to read them in the newspaper articles. Accompanying activities included fictitious games with final scores written in Roman numerals. Students had to “translate” the Roman numerals to see what team won and by how much.

Other applications of the use of Roman numerals were discussed in relationship to encyclopedias, outlining, etc. With the high interest in the Colts and Bears Super Bowl, the students learned about Roman numerals in a fun way. It also brought attention to reading the sports section and understanding how certain scoring statistics were reported.

Karen Haney
4th Grade Gifted
Palm Terrace Elementary

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