Factors, Primes and Composites Oh My!

After working on GCF, we went backwards and worked on Factors, Primes, and Composites. It still amazes me how many of my students have a poor recall of their multiplication facts. This is going to really hinder them as the lessons continue. I will continue to stress to them the importance of knowing those facts without even thinking about them. However, until they see the real need to commit these to memory we can only prod them along.

This is another challenging topic especially for 5th graders. We started with a PowerPoint again and reviewed the definitions of factors. I also showed them with a triangle how the multiplication and division work together instead of thinking of them as separate math topics. Maybe if they see this connection it will be easier for them to remember the divison facts.

After the review of what factors well it was on to the new words Prime and Composite. Explained that a prime number only has the factors of 1 and itself (however, 1 is NOT a prime or a composite since it does not have 2 or more factors). Composite numbers have more than 2 factors such as 4 (Factors - 1,2,4).  Worked on breaking these down using various numbers. Was also able to introduce the term exponent and show them what it means. I think they really enjoyed knowing this and the fact it makes writing a factor sentence much smaller and quicker.

Overall, they did quite well with this new topic. At the end, we used an interactive whiteboard Prime Factor Tree. I mentioned I had sent this to them as well and they were excited they could practice with this as much as they want. Planning on revising this topic since they are usually tested on it on the 5th grade OAT test (although it is really a 6th grade standard). I don't know who set up those standards or our math book but they need to work together on this :-). My one student who like to monopolize the chat window was back. However, this time I only allowed her to write to me. No one could see her posts. Since they were not on topic, it was better for everyone so they could concentrate on the lesson. I only hope she understood what we were doing since she seemed to writing in the chat window while we were going over things. I guess time will tell.

Next week in Math we are working with Adding and Subtracting fractions with unlike denominators. This is in Unit 4 and I am not sure some if the students are at this section. If that is the case, this will be nice preparation for them.

Until next time - Practice those math facts!!!