Skip to main content

Prime Factorization and GCF

What a week! One snow day and 2 late starts so far!
I just realized that I haven't written in almost 10 days.....I guess thinking about writing doesn't get the words on the page, huh?
 
Anyway, we worked on prime factorization at the end of last week, using both the factor tree method and the ladder method. Most of the students prefer the factor tree (I think that's because they've seen it before and feel comfortable with it), but a few like the ladder method. We've been using Prime Factorization Footloose to practice this skill; those who are finished have moved on to using the Factors and GCF Footloose cards.

We have discussed GCF briefly, several times, and it is really a review for them (based on their pretest results); the biggest problem here is that they often skip factors when they list them, and miss the GCF because of missing factors.  Today, we're going to discuss using prime factorizations to find the GCF. I never learned this way when I was growing up, but I really like it because it eliminates the need to find every factor of a number. We'll see how they like it...

Have a great day!

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Memory Wheels - First Day, Last Day, and Any Day in Between!

This post has been moved to:  http://www.cognitivecardiowithmsmm.com/blog/memory-wheels-first-day-last-day-and-any-day-in-between
7 comments
Read more

Math Class - First Day Activity

Rectangle of pentominoes Many 6th graders seem to have a pretty negative attitude about math, so I try to do something interesting to "grab" them during our first class. Last year, during the first math class, we spent part of the period working with pentominoes. Before working with the pentominoes, however, we played a name game so we could learn each others' names (I find it impossible to start anything else if I don't know some names, and fortunately, I learn them fairly quickly). rectangle outline For the activity, I divided the students into groups of 3 or 4. The directions for the activity were not complicated - the task was to make a rectangle, using all of the pentominoes. I gave students an outline of the rectangle, as pictured to the left, so they would know the correct size of the rectangle. The squares in the grid are each one inch. The rectangle is 5 squares (inches) wide and 13 inches long (13 inches includes the row that has the "Pent
2 comments
Read more