Calculators are Cool!

Kate, Meg and Kyle calculating

We used calculators a lot today. We calculated some really big sums, like these ones:

3 318 624 + 8 487 311 = 11 805 935

8 328 692 - 4 168 341 = 4 160 351

9 999 999 ÷ 3 = 3 333 333

6 218 x 387 = 2 406 366

We feel very clever to be working with such BIG numbers! We need to be able to work out some maths in our heads, or on paper, but calculators are useful tools for more complicated work. They are also really great for writing words too!

We discovered that when you type in some numbers and then turn the calculator upside-down, they look like certain letters. In pairs, we tried to find as many calculator words as we could! Some of the ones we came up with are: he (34), bee (338), hello (0.7734), Lego (0637), egg (663), be (38), hi (14), bob (808), so (0.5), see (335), hill (7714), blog (6078), bill (7718) and igloo (0.0791). It's very, very tricky to think backwards and upside down, but it was great fun and really gave our brains a work-out!

Did you know that numbers can be either odd or even? We did some investigations with counters and discovered some interesting things that make it easier to understand. We made a video about what we learned!

We were allowed to wear free dress to school today if we brought in a gold coin ($1 or $2) donation. We are helping to raise money for the Mary MacKillop Foundation. Mary MacKillop is going to be Australia's first saint. She will be canonised (which means made a saint) in October, this year.

We're all looking forward to our well-deserved weekend. We've been working very hard this week!

Love from The Smarties and Mrs N