Students read Jim and the Giant Beanstalk by Raymond Briggs. Jim helps the aging giantby measuring his head and getting giant eyeglasses, false teeth and a wig. The students use the measures given in the book to find the size of the giant's hand and then his height. They then generate percent exercises that can be solved mentally and share them with their classmates. Understand and apply the standard algebraic order of operations.
Students bring in calculators from home to examine their differences.
Some of the displays show 32 and others show 14 . Students play rolling numbers. They use four white dice and one red one to generate four working numbers and one target number. They must combine all of the working numbers using any operations they know to formulate an expression that equals the target number. Questions about order of operations and about appropriate use of parentheses frequently arise.