I feel soooo old

So I put this on during dismissal and all the kids were like “YOU WATCH WWE?!?!”

I once tried to put on some classical, and Will said “next time Mr. Potter, can we listen to some good music?”

 

So during centers this week we are working individually on some challenging problems, and then as a group going over them and finding our mistakes.  I think it’s really helping quite a few students learn to self-assess.  When students are able to get immediate feedback like this, it makes it much easier for them to see where their gaps in understanding or mistakes are.

 

Again tonight students have some geometry review.  We talked about ordered pairs and graphing some today, and students also have a mystery picture to draw using ordered pairs.

GeometryReview2

MysteryPic1

 

Our Language Arts lesson got quickly derailed as we were talking about languages in the Mysterious Benedict society.  We took a break to review how North and South America were colonized (invaded) by different countries from Europe.  Various places have their current languages today based on what country colonized them, and we had to take some time exploring where those countries were.

tonight students again have a combined LA/science review in the form of a passage about the lungs:

HumanBodyHumanLungs

 

Before I knew it we were out of time, as the vast majority of students then went to their end of quarter Frozen celebration, where they got to do a bunch of fun things like make a lava lamp and make little snowmen!

 

so, tl;dr

geometry review, and an ordered pair mystery picture exercise:

GeometryReview2

MysteryPic1

Review passage on the lungs:

HumanBodyHumanLungs

as always, read!

 

Have a good one,

 

-Mr. Potter

 

One week until Case 21!

Our schedule for next week goes:

Monday: review day

Tuesday Case 21 Language Arts

Wednesday Case 21 Math

Thursday Case 21 Science

Fri: End of quarter celebration and early release!

 

So we spent a good bit of time finishing our powers of ten notes this morning and talking about that for a good time.  This will be the last really *new* thing we talk about this quarter, but it is very important, so we’ll continue hitting on it regularly.

We are also doing a good bit of review, so tonight students have a short review quiz on geometry.  It might seem long, but they are all multiple choice questions, with very little actual work to be done.

GeometryReview

In Language Arts we continue to work on finding evidence inside texts, and being able to reason our answers.  Today we had some great discussions where the students tried to explain their reasoning and convince me of their answers.

Tonight students have a short passage about the lungs and some questions to answer.  As always, I expect to see reasoning!

TheHumanHeart

In Science we talked about some body systems, and how they are connected.  We also watched a Bill Nye video on the brain, which included a whole bunch of really neat optical illusions.  Ask your student about them!

 

so, tl;dr

one review packet on geometry

GeometryReview

one passage on the lungs (with reasoning!)

TheHumanHeart

as always, read!

 

Have a good one,

 

-Mr. Potter

This morning we got extra PE from Mr. McClaney!

Last week we had a lockdown drill during our normal PE time, and the students missed out on the majority of their class.  To make up for this, Mr. McClaney donated some of his time this morning to ensure the students got their fair share of one of their favorite specials.

 

Today we extended all of our talk of exponents to powers of ten, and the neat patterns we see when working with powers of ten.  We took some notes, but the understandings here were very shaky, and we’ll be talking about them a LOT this week.

The basic ‘shortcut’ most of us were taught is that if you are multiplying by for example 10^3rd power, you move the decimal point three places to the right, and if you were multiplying by 10^-3, you would move the decimal point three places to the left, etc etc.  It’s great for the students to know this, but I want them to really understand why this works, as opposed to simply remembering a shortcut.

 

The basics of this are if you are multiplying something like 12.47 x 10^2, then really you are multiplying each part of 12.47 by 100.

12.47 is made up of 1 ten, 2 ones, 4 tenths, and 7 hundredths

if we multiply 10 by 100, we get 1000

if we multiply 2 by 100, we get 200

.4 by 100 is 40,

.07 by 100 will give us 7

Thus we end up increasing each part of our original number by a factor of 100, which is really increasing it’s place value by two places.

 

The notes we started today:

PoTNotes

Tonight students have a few problems to do working with powers of ten.  Depending upon how this looks tonight it might be pretty much the same homework tomorrow, as I think we’ll keep working on this stuff until we really have a deep understanding of how and why this works.

PowersOfTen

 

In Language Arts we started talking about synonyms and antonyms.  This is fairly straight-forward stuff, and it was nice to see some nodding heads after this morning!

 

Tonight students have a simple antonym worksheet to do, which I unfortunately seem to have lost the master for, and can not upload here at the moment.  I apologize for this!

 

In Science we did some reviewing of the body systems we have talked about, and the students tonight have a little language arts reading selection dealing with bones:

Bones On the Go! Passage

Bones On the Go! Questions

 

Quite a short day!

 

so tl;dr

one set of powers of ten problems

PowersOfTen

One antonym worksheet

bones bones bones!

Bones On the Go! Passage

Bones On the Go! Questions

 

as always, read!

 

have a good one,

 

-Mr. Potter

Today was a few quizzes, and a lot of fun…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Have a good weekend!

 

Remember to read!

 

-Mr. Potter

Tomorrow is blanket fort and gum day!!

For our 1st jewel celebration, tomorrow students may bring a blanket and gum.  We will make blanket forts with our blankets and desks, and then have DEAR time with them, while chewing our gum.  It should be pretty fun!

So yes, they may bring a small comforter or blanket, and yes, they may bring gum!

 

Today, we had a really good talk about exponents.  We focused on the idea that exponentiation is raising a base to a given power by multiplying the base by itself an exponent number of times.

We also talked about the pattern we see in exponents, and used that to extrapolate something raised to the power zero, and to the power of negative 1.

Exponent notes: ExponentNotes

Tomorrow we will take a quick quiz on order of operations and I hope we can move on, as the students picked this stuff up quickly.

 

Tonight students have another sheet of equations to evaluate.  It also has two of the ’24’ problems at the bottom.  I love math puzzles!

OOPs homework 3

In Language Arts we talked a LOT about author’s purpose, and why they would choose a particular text structure for their work.  Tonight, students have another collection of short paragraphs to analyze.  They should give me this information about each paragraph:

1. Type of text structure used

2.  Graphic organizer presenting the information

3.  I believe the author used …. because…..

For number 3, I don’t want them to justify their answer for number 1.  I want them to explain why an author would pick that particular structure.  Why would they choose problem and solution?  Why would they choose sequence?  What are they writing about that makes that text structure work best?

Text Structures Shoes

As an example, here is the first one (that we did together)

1.  Sequence

2.  (graphic organizer here)

3.  I believe the author used sequence because they are teaching something, and the best way to do that is to tell someone how to do something step by step.

 

 

In Science we talked again about DNA and watched a quick animation that explained how DNA is replicated into RNA, and then used by ribosomes to create new proteins.

We also had a discussion about learned versus inherited traits, and it seems that the students already have a good grasp of the idea that you inherited your eyes and your chin from your parents, but not the fact that you may or may not like baseball.

 

 

so, tl;dr

One last set of order of operations problems:

OOPs homework 3

 

One set of text structures, answering the question “Why would the author use THIS text structure?”

Text Structures Shoes

 

also read!

 

P.S. I apologize if my request yesterday that you allow your student to do their text structures homework independently was frustrating.  I understand completely!  But I appreciate your cooperation, and I’ll try not to do it again!

 

Have a good one,

 

-Mr. Potter

A high of 70?  Seriously?  North Carolina is ridiculous.

 

Order of operations is going just swimmingly.  For the most part the students have internalized the idea that we do the most powerful operations first, unless we are told implicitly otherwise.  Today we did a lot of work with parenthesis, which can trip even the best of us up and become confusing when they are nested within each other.

A thing that I used to do when I was young was connect the open and close parenthesis like they were bubbles.  This way I could see where they started and stopped, and I could focus in on the inner-most ‘bubble’ and start there.  If this helps your student, by all means encourage them to do this until they get the hang of it.

an example: bubble parenthesis

 

Tonight they have a new page of equations to evaluate, as well as a little puzzle at the bottom.  At the bottom they are given 4 numbers, and they must put those numbers (all used once and only once!) into an equation so that the answer will be 24.  There is an example in case they have forgotten.  There are also rewards depending upon how many equations they can come up with!

OOPs homework 2

 

In language arts we had to have a talk about the paragraph that was homework last night.  Many students simply wrote a paragraph comparing the CONTENT of the two passages, instead of comparing and contrasting the TEXT STRUCTURES used by the authors.  We took a look at what this kind of comparing and contrasting might look like, and came up with this basic framework:

In the Helen Keller passage the author used the ….. text structure. In the Alexander Graham Bell passage the author used the ….. text structure.  I believe the author used ….. in the HK passage because….I believe the author used …… in the AGB passage because….

Tonight students should take this framework, and fill it in.  This will replace their work from yesterday.

Students should also complete a worksheet on text structures and graphic organizers, just as we have been doing in the past.  please DO NOT ASSIST YOUR STUDENT WITH THIS WORKSHEET.  I am trying to get a good idea of where students are at with these understandings, and I’m using this worksheet to assess this.  Please allow them to work completely independently on this, regardless of how much it may drive you insane as you see them make a silly mistake (Welcome to the story of my life).

 

In Science we started talking about heredity and genetics.  This is always a really interesting topic where we learn all about what makes us what we are and what we look like.  Tonight ask your student why they weren’t born with 4 heads and 9 noses, and see what they say!

 

so, tl;dr

one math worksheet on order of operations, with a puzzle

OOPs homework 2

Re-do paragraph comparing text structures of Helen Keller and Alexander Graham Bell selections

One text structure review sheet (to be done individually, no matter how it may vex you!)

TextStructuresDec3

And as always:  read, read, read

 

Have a good one!

 

-Mr. Potter

Today we finally said goodbye to our plants.  We took our planters out to the woods and emptied the soil so that it could be used by other plants.  We also got to pull out the plants and look at their root systems, which was very interesting.  Many of the students were surprised by how long the roots had gotten, and how well anchored they were.  It was difficult pulling out many of the corn stalks.

 

In Math we continue to work on order of operations.  Just remember, we do the most powerful operations first (working left to right) unless we are told otherwise!

In case you need them, here are yesterday’s notes: OOPNotes

We did many problems together today as a class, and here are some examples in case you need them as well: OOPSExamples

Tonight the students have a simple page of expressions to evaluate using order of operations.  Included on this sheet are two problems that have answers, and the students must decide where to put parenthesis in the problems in order for them to evaluate to the given answer.

OOPs homework

 

In Language Arts we got to have many individual conferences about the students’ Goldilocks stories.  We went over their own personal rubric, and why they gave themselves the grading that they did.  It can be very difficult to objectively grade yourself, or look at yourself with a critical eye in general.  If we can get this down,  I believe it will make us into better writers.  If we can get the whole looking at yourself in general with a critical eye thing down, it might even make us into better human beings.  (maybe!)

We got through about half of the students today, and we’ll get through the next half tomorrow I hope.

 

Tonight in language arts, students should first write a short paragraph comparing and contrasting the two passages they read yesterday (page 19-22 in motivation reading).  I want this to be a compare and contrast of the TEXT STRUCTURES used, and NOT the content of the stories.  This means I DON’T want to see something like “One was about Helen Keller, and the other was about Alexander Graham Bell”.  What I want to see is something along the lines of “In the first passage the author used problem and solution to describe such and such, and in the second passage the author also used problem and solution to describe so and so….”

Students should also Answer the questions about the two passages on pages 23-26 in their motivation reading books.  As always, I expect reasoning!

 

tl;dr:

one simple sheet of expressions

OOPs homework

Pages 23-26 in motivation reading WITH REASONING and then a paragraph comparing the text structures of the txt structures of the two passages (NOT THE CONTENT!)

 

as always, read for 35 minutes

 

Have  a good one!

 

-Mr. Potter

I hope everyone had a great thanksgiving break!  Mine was full of food and naps.  It was wonderful.

 

Today we started talking about the order of operations.  I was pleasantly surprised that no students had weird ideas about PEMDAS or Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally.  Basically please don’t tell your students these things, as they oftentimes give students mistaken ideas like they should do multiplication before division, or addition before subtraction.  Instead, we took a good amount of notes on the ‘big idea’ behind order of operations, which is that we do the more powerful operations first, unless we’re told implicitly otherwise.

Together we came up with the basic rankings of operations as follows:

multiplication and division are most powerful

addition and subtraction are less powerful

 

This is because multiplication and division are the inverse of each other, so they’re equally powerful.

Same with addition and subtraction.

So what about that ‘implicitly told otherwise’ thing?  That means before we do those, we should do anything in parenthesis, starting at the innermost, and working our way out.

 

Finally, there are two things we haven’t learned much about, but are worth mentioning: exponents and radicals.  These are both more powerful than basic multiplication or division, so these go before those operations.

Which means our final Order of Operations goes:

1. parenthesis
2. exponents and radicals
3. multiplication and division
4. addition and subtraction

The notes we took: OOPNotes

We talked about doing problems one step at a time, and looking at each step and determining what is the most powerful operation, moving from left to right.

 

Tonight students have a very simple page of exponents to do, along with two expressions to solve, using order of operations.

ExponentsDec1

In Language Arts, we talked at GREAT length about what Mr. Potter is looking for in our stories.  The students got a copy of my grading rubric for their Goldilocks stories, and they themselves graded their own paper, and a peer’s paper.  For many students, it looks like it finally got them to look at their own papers with a critical eye.  We will continue exercises that will get the students to critically examine their own work in the future.  I’d like for this to become a habit, and not something that we have to ask them explicitly to do.

Here is the rubric we used: Goldilocks Rubric

 

Tonight students have some text structure review.  They should read the two passages on pages 19-22 in their motivation reading book.  After each passage, they should draw a graphic organizer that corresponds to the text structure used for that story.

In Science, we took all of our plant data, and put it into excel.  The students then got to play around a good bit with creating graphs in excel.  We had a lot of fun messing around with the different settings, and thinking about what kind of graphs and what settings would represent our data the best.

Later we will add in temperature data and talk about comparing graphs, or maybe even plotting multiple data points on one graph!  It should be fun.

 

ok, so tl;dr

one page of exponents, and two problems to answer using order of operations

ExponentsDec1

Read pages 19-22 in motivation reading, and after each passage draw a graphic organizer that corresponds to the text structure used in each story.

As always, read and get your reading log signed!

 

Have a good one,

 

-Mr. Potter

24 hours to freedom!!

*ahem* I mean, I can’t believe there’s only one day left in the week!

Today was a whirlwind of back and forth doing little bits of this and that.  First we did some work on the computers, then we did some work all together, then we did some small groups, and then we did some work all together again, and then finally some more work on the computers.  I’m exhausted.

Stories are DONE.  Even if they’re not done, WE are done with them as a class.  Tomorrow we are printing them out, and making little picture books.  I’m looking forward to reading the final versions!

We are doing some review of decimals to get ready for our end of quarter Case 21s.  We’re actually a good bit ahead of the normal 5th grade curriculum, so we’re doing some review at this point just to iron out any lingering problems.

Tonight students should do page 63 in their motivation math books as a review.

In Language arts, we talked a lot about text structures, and comparing two different texts based on their text structures, and the way the author presents the information.

As a class, we read two passages.

One on the troubles facing polar bears:

Polar bears

And another on the survival traits of some animals:

Survival_Tactics_article

Tonight students are to take a good look at these two articles, and first determine the text structures that each author used to present their information.  Next they should look at the information the author presented, in an attempt to understand the author’s purpose for writing.  Finally, they should compare and contrast the two articles, paying particular attention to the ways the authors presented their information.  To help with this, they can fill out this handy chart:

CompareContrast

It’s a light load of work, because I expect a bit of a light turn-out tomorrow.  HOWEVER, if you do show up tomorrow, we have a few special and fun things planned 😉

so, tl;dr

decimal review: Page 63 in motivation math

compare and contrast these two articles:

Polar bears

Survival_Tactics_article

On this sheet:  CompareContrast

As always, read for 35 minutes!

 

have a good one,

-Mr. Potter

Monday, but feels like Wednesday….

 

So this morning we put some finishing touches on our stories in the computer lab.  We re-formatted our stories so that we can print them out and then make little books out of them.  Almost everyone is on track to get this done tomorrow!

 

We started to talk about triangles today in math, and took a bunch of notes.  Tonight students have a page of triangles to classify, as well as a page that *should* be review of different operations with decimals.

the triangle notes:

TrianglesNotes

And the classification worksheet:

TrianglesClassificationNov24

 

Students should also do page 62 in their motivation math book for decimal review.

 

In Language Arts, we had a great conversation about media, commercials, and advertising.  We talked about what advertisers are trying to do (persuade you), and about different advertisements that persuaded us, and those that did not.

We made lists of the characteristics of advertisements that we trusted and those that we did not.  We found that we tend to trust those that we either have previous experience/knowledge about, or that go along with our own beliefs.  We tend to be distrustful of those that we are uninformed about, have no previous knowledge of, or that go contrary to our views/understandings.  We then started talking about how it’s good to check things, whether we initially believe them or not.

Tonight students have a short passage along with the media theme, about the internet.  It is on page 208 in their motivation reading books.  As always they should answer the questions that follow, WITH REASONING!

 

Finally, we talked briefly about the digestive system once again, and got a chance to take our quiz.  Tonight ask your student about what happens to food after you eat it.  Make sure you do it during dinner so they can totally gross you and themselves out!

 

so, tl;dr

triangle classification sheet

TrianglesClassificationNov24

P 62 in Motivation Math – decimal review

P208 in Motivation Reading – answer questions with reasoning!

 

and read!

 

have a good one,

 

-Mr. Potter