The Contexts for Learning Mathematics Teacher Pack: Grades 4–5 contains 1 Getting Started guide, 3 unit books, and 11 context-setting posters.

 

The focus of The Box Factory is the deepening and extending of students’ understanding of multiplication, specifically the associative and commutative properties and their use with computation; systematic factoring; and the extension of students’ understanding of two-dimensional rectangular arrays to three-dimensional arrays within rectangular prisms. The concepts are explored within the context of a box factory where boxes are designed to meet specific size and space requirements.

 

The fair-sharing of submarine sandwiches on a school field trip provides the context for exploring big ideas related to fractions in Field Trips and Fund-Raisers. In attempting to settle arguments about the fair distribution of sandwiches, students explore the connection between division and fractions as well as ways to compare fractional amounts. As the unit progresses, students use the double number line as a model and explore equivalent fractions.

 

The California Frog-Jumping Contest uses the context of the famous short story by Mark Twain—The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County—to develop equivalence and its use in solving algebraic problems. This context leads to using the number line as a tool for solving problems with an unknown: the length of a frog jump. As the unit progresses, students investigate equivalent lengths of different-sized jumps and work with these equivalences flexibly to solve problems.

 

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