All posts by Mr. Potter

Homework

Homework Mar 17 (Mon)

It is depressing as can be outside, but at least we had a full day of school!  Now we just hope that repeats itself again tomorrow.  Did you know this is the longest in a row we’ve had school so far this quarter?  What a crazy winter.

In math, we reviewed finding the area and perimeter of an object that has fractional sides.  Our entire semester has really been building to this point where we can do addition and multiplication of fractions easily, and finding perimeter and area with sides that contain fractions is a great way to combine both of those skills.

The students homework is just a review of adding and subtracting fractions: page 68 in their motivation math book.

 

In Language Arts, we worked more on poetry, and talked about poems that do not rhyme.  We all tried our hand at our own non-rhyming poem about a color of our choice.  We brainstormed things that are that color, and describing words for them.

We then chose a pattern of comparing our color to the items we chose and describing them together.  The students did a very good job with this.  My hope is that I can get these and the animal poems finished and put up on our wall by the end of this week.  If you come for the science fair, stop by and take a look!

 

We then took a VERY lengthy quiz on poems that we actually didn’t finish.   We will finish it tomorrow.  The students were doing a great job summarizing the poems stanza by stanza.  This strategy will definitely help them when trying to analyze poetry in the future.

 

We also read a selection in our motivation reading that contained three poems, and talked about these.  Students are to re-read the selection on page 109 and answer the questions on pages 113 and 114 pertaining to the selection.

 

so tldr;

one review page in motivation math – page 68

 

two pages of comprehension question in motivation reading – page 113 and 114

 

hope for another full day tomorrow!

 

-Mr. Potter

 

Homework

Homework Mar 14 (Fri)

No homework for the wekeend except of course to read!

 Students should feel free to work on their poems however. 

We had a day FILLED with working on our poems. 

And also tests!  Another day, another grumble!

Please be reminded that the poems should be from the point of view of the animal – that means you talk as if you were the animal.  You don’t just do a “guess what animal this is!” type poem.  Some students were a bit confused with this.

 

Have a fun-filled weekend and let’s keep our fingers crossed that the Sunday precipitation is just rain!

-Mr. Potter

Uncategorized

Homework Mar 13 (Thurs)

Another day, another homework post!

 

We actually had a great morning, followed by a bit of a rough afternoon!  Talking out unfortunately had us go from negative 2 to positive 4 in just 15 short minutes.  This meant we had four laps to do at recess.  Much grumbling ensued.

 

In math, we worked more on fractions, and today started talking about finding areas of rectangles with fractional sides.  This will lead us back to a real discussion of multiplying fractions.

The students’ homework tonight is to do page 67 in their motivation math book.  This should mostly be review, but will give me a good indication of where they are in their understandings so far.  A fair amount of students said they had lost or thrown away their motivation math books.  Hopefully they can find them at home, or they will have to purchase new ones.

MathPage67Mar13

In language arts we had to spend some time re-doing their comparison charts from yesterday.  Many students are still struggling with using evidence to support their statements.  When forced to produce evidence, many find that their statements don’t make any sense.  We will continue working on this.

We then worked on quite a few poems written from the point of view of animals.  Here are the five poems the students were given in their groups.  Can you identify what animal’s voice is telling the poem?

POVPoems

Could you tell?  If not, here are the answers!

For Language Arts students are to write their own poem from the point of view of an animal.  They may pick any animal they like.  The poem must be at MINIMUM five lines, and I would prefer it rhymes, but that is not definite.  We will be revising this and working on it more tomorrow.

In science, we are still working on work and power.  The students have a review worksheet for vocabulary, and then they also went onto the messageboard, watched some study jams, and posted back with something they learned.  Feel free to go here to check out their responses. (You’ll have to log in, and let me warn you that the children are addicted to smiley faces)

RecognizingVocabularyScienceMar13

 

tldr;

Page 67 in motivation math book

MathPage67Mar13

minimum 5 line poem told from the point of view of an animal of your choice

recognizing vocabulary review sheet

RecognizingVocabularyScienceMar13

 

Have a good day!

 

-Mr. Potter

Homework

Homework Mar 12 (Wed)

We had a really great morning today.  The students for the most part had their homework and reading logs, and people actually copied down their centers without having to be reminded a million times!

 

In Math, we are still focusing on strategies for subtracting fractions.  We worked more today with breaking apart/ungrouping a single whole into fractional parts.  So we are talking about doing things like:

37  and 1/3     =     36 and 4/3

Or

9 and 1/5    =   8 and 6/5

We do this because if we see a problem like:

37 and 1/3      –        2 and 1/2

You don’t really need to break 37 and 1/3 all the way down to an improper fraction like 112/3 or 224/6.  We can just break apart a single whole so that we have enough to subtract our 1/2 fractional part.

This is the focus of tonight’s math homework, which can be found here:

SubtractingFractionsMar12

In language arts we went over our vocabulary quiz on our ceed/cede/cess words, and it seems for the most part the students did well.  Based on this I will continue to have the students write a quick short story using the words in addition to their sentences each week we do a new vocabulary list.

We revisited our talks about the story of the three little pigs and then the true story of the three little pigs, and how the narrator and their perspective can change a story.

Working off of this, students were given a poem to read and summarize, and then are asked to compare the poem to the black beauty reading they did yesterday, focusing on how the author’s point of view can influence how a story is told.  Also they should compare the themes of the two selections, and how they may be influenced by the narrator.  This can all be found here:

SummaryAndComparisonMar12

In Music the students are learning about jazz.  If you love Wynton Marsalis as much as I do, have them listen to this.

We did manage a bit of recess before the winds pushed us inside.

In science we had a VERY long battle with the idea of doing work and power, and how they are all related.  Work = force x distance.  It’s how much force was exerted over a certain distance, and we measure it in Joules (Newton-Meters).  If I move a chair across the room and you move a chair across the room, we do the same work.

If I move a chair across the room, and you move two chairs halfway across the room, we do the same work.

Power, is a measure of how much work is done over time.  We measure it in Watts (joules/second).  If you and I move chairs across the room, we did the same work.  If I do it in 30 seconds, but you take 30 minutes, I have more power, as I did the same amount of work faster.

This was REALLY tough on the students, and we’ll be revisiting this idea in the upcoming days.  We had quite a few who were checked out halfway through our discussion and investigation.  You know what they say, the beatings will continue until morale improves!

 

alrighty tldr;

One math worksheet on subtracting fractions using the ungrouping of single whole numbers:

SubtractingFractionsMar12

summarize a new poem and compare it to the black beauty reading selection from yesterday, hopefully focusing on the narrator and how it changed what information was available to the reader:

SummaryAndComparisonMar12

 

That’s it!

T-minus 8 instructional days until Case 21 assessments.   >___<

See everyone tomorrow!

 

-Mr. Potter

Uncategorized

Homework Mar 11 (Tues)

We are on track to have a fantastic week!

We have been working lately on our calling out in class.  We have a number line on our blackboard that goes from negative 5 to positive 5.  When we call out, we go up a number, and when we go a while without calling out, we go down a number.  if we end up in the positives, we have to practice being quiet at recess while we walk together.  If we end up in the negatives, we get that many extra minutes of recess.  Today we ended on NEGATIVE SEVEN!  The students are really just doing fantastic in the room lately, and we are getting a ton done as a result.  Make sure to congratulate your students if you get a chance!

 

In math, we are talking more about working with mixed numbers and how to move back and forth between those and improper fractions to make our problems as simple as possible.  On yesterday’s homework, students were to convert their mixed numbers totally to improper fractions to perform their operations.  We talked about that today, and how sometimes that just is not very efficient.  If you have a huge number like 11 and 1/2 minus just 1 and 1/4th, then converting totally to an improper fraction just doesn’t make sense.  And if we have to subtract a fractional part that is larger than the fractional parts that we started with (for instance 2 and 1/3 minus 1 and 2/3) then we don’t really have our number in a form that is simple to subtract 2/3.  We definitely have the 1 and 2/3 inside of our 2 and 1/3, but it’s just not in a form that’s easily accessible to take.

In this case, we convert just ONE of our wholes to fractional parts.  So we convert 2 and 1/3 to 1 and 4/3.  Then it becomes simple to subtract our 1 and 2/3.

This is the focus of tonight’s homework, with just a simple seven problems for students to do.  I expect them to be done well, with all work shown.  The first two are done as examples here:

SubtractingFractionsMar11

This is very similar to when we do subtraction with ungrouping.  You can think of this as ungrouping a whole.

 

In Language Arts, I was a tad unimpressed with the summaries that I received for the poems from yesterday.  As such, we are working more on ensuring that we do our best on our summaries and that they accurately reflect the content.  We talked about looking at the first and last sentences in particular of paragraphs and stanzas and how they often give us a clue as to the main idea of that paragraph or stanza.  To practice some of these skills, students should write a summary of a short excerpt from the story Black Beauty.

BlackBeautySummarySheetMar11

 

We also took our quiz on our cess/cede/ceed words.  Hopefully we see good things from this.  I’m hoping the extra work from writing the stories helps!

In science, we talked again about balanced and unbalanced forces, and watched the Bill Nye video on Atoms.  This seemed to clear up some of our misconceptions and misunderstandings that we left with yesterday.

Students also have a short true/false worksheet from their science chapter on balanced and unbalanced forces.

Forces_ScienceMar11

So, tldr;

One math worksheet on subtracting fractions without converting the whole thing into an improper fraction.

SubtractingFractionsMar11

One summary of a short bit of Black Beauty (paragraph by paragraph!)

BlackBeautySummarySheetMar11

One science worksheet on forces

Forces_ScienceMar11

It may seem like a good bit, but honestly the science and math should be short and sweet.  I expect some time to be put into the summary, however!

And as always, let’s get that 35 minutes of reading done and reading logs signed!

 

Have a nice night, and see everyone tomorrow!

 

-Mr. Potter

Uncategorized

Homework Mar 10 (Mon)

School occurred today!

We had a full weekend and I know you were  as happy about that as I was.

We got a ton done today, and we have a good bit of homework to reflect that.  In Math, we are looking at subtracting mixed fractions. We came to the conclusion that the easiest method is to convert the mixed numbers to improper fractions and then work from there.

So for math we have a set of ten subtraction problems.

SubtractingMixedNumbersMar10

The first three problems are done there as well. We have four basic steps:

1: convert the mixed numbers to improper fractions.

2: convert to like denominators

3: subtract

4: convert what we have to a mixed number and simplify

 

In language arts we are still working on identifying themes. We read a short selection in our motivation reading book that included two poems. Tonight students should summarize these two poems the same way we did last week: stanza by stanza. Then they should identify what they believe to be the theme.

We had a very interesting talk about forces that led to a discussion of atoms in science.   is can be difficult for students to really wrap their head around the concept of atoms and how they make up everything.  We will keep hitting on this as we go.

so tldr;

one math sheet

SubtractingMixedNumbersMar10

two poems summarized with themes identified

ALSO!!!

tonight is COSMOS with Niel DeGrasse Tyson. This is a follow up to Cosmos with Carl Sagan and is an extremely wonderful and interesting program About the universe. Unfortunately it starts at 10pm so I don’t recommend staying up for it but I do recommend taping it!  It is on National geographic tonight and fox on Sundays. If that isn’t possible don’t worry as we will watch an episode or two in the classroom. Hopefully it will get a few of ours hooked on science!

As always, sorry I just can’t stop typing, and see everyone tomorrow!

Uncategorized

Homework Mar 6 (Thurs)

Another full day of school.  I could get used to this.  The weather forecast says rain tonight, but above freezing.  Keep your fingers crossed for us please!

Today we talked again about volume, and the students did very well finding the volumes of different rectangular prisms and finding the sides of a rectangular prism given the volume.  I was very impressed that they are picking this up so quickly.  We also worked a bit on how to draw a 3D rectangular prism ourselves.  Ask your student if they can do it for you!

 

The math homework is an extension of the homework from last night.  It again asks the students to draw representations of fractions, and then solve the problems using models to find common denominators.  Just like last night, we have done the first problem together.

AddingSubtractingFractionsMar6

In language arts we are focusing more on themes, and starting our little foray into poetry.  We talked about how to summarize what is going on in a poem stanza by stanza, and how this can help us to determine a poem’s theme.  This is especially helpful when the poems contain a great deal of figurative language.

The students have two poems to summarize and identify the theme of.  One we did in class, and the other is for homework.  Many students did very well on this, and managed to get theirs done during our homework/read aloud time.  It wouldn’t hurt to look back over, however, and especially to think over their chosen theme.

PoemSummaryMar6

In science we went over our quiz from last week, and I was very impressed with their overall achievement.  We had a bit of a snag talking about gravity – some students are still having trouble with the concept that everything has gravity.  The Earth is pulling on us, but we are also pulling ever so slightly on the Earth.  We also had to go over the fact that gravity affects all objects equally, regardless of mass.  We watched a neat mythbusters video about it.  Feel free to take a look!

 

tldr;

One math worksheet – students must draw representational models!

AddingSubtractingFractionsMar6

Two poems – summarized and theme identified!

PoemSummaryMar6

35 minutes of reading, as always!

 

Also, REMEMBER THE TALENT SHOW IS TONIGHT.  If you would like to come out and watch some of our students put on a great show, come on out – the show starts at 6:00!

Have a good night, and HOPEFULLY I will see everyone tomorrow.

 

-Mr. Potter

Homework

Homework Mar 5 (Wed)

We actually had a full day of school!  I can’t believe we still have those!

 

All sarcasm aside, we tried to get in a ton of stuff today.

In math, we started learning about volume.  Volume is the amount of space that something takes up.  We measure this in cubic units.  We also started work in our volume center.  Students made different rectangular prisms with the same volume using pop-cubes.  We will be working more on this in the upcoming weeks, and expect some homework dealing with this soon.

Our homework, however, is still focusing on fractions.  We talked about different ways of finding common denominators, and using an area model to aid us.  The students’ homework tonight is three word problems that focus on using this area model to find common denominators and add or subtract fractions.  We did some examples and did the first question together.  The worksheet and first question can be found here:

Will_It_Always_WorkMar5

In Language arts, we talked about points of view, and how they can influence what the author can tell us.  We also talked about themes, and the messages that authors have for us.  Students read the three little pigs and then listened to an alternate version told from the Wolf’s point of view.  Students then did a writing exercise where they wrote which story they believed to be true, and why.  How about you?  Do you believe the first story, or the Wolf’s side?

I am giving students one more night to finish their ceed/cede/cess stories.  They are due tomorrow.  We had too many students who had not brought home their word lists and were out of luck due to the snow day.  The stories are due tomorrow, and we will have a quiz on the words on Friday.

In science we are still talking about motion and forces.  We talked again today about what brings a thrown ball to the ground, and what slows down the ball as it is thrown.  We watched astronauts hit a golf ball, and then somehow got into a conversation about the size of different stars.  I have no idea how that happened, but we cleared up some misconceptions about what stars are, and their size.

 

Finally we took a quick quiz on forces and motion.  I am expecting good things from this quiz, as the students have been pretty on top of things for this unit.

 

tldr;

One math worksheet – all work done on a separate sheet of paper with fraction grids/pictures

Will_It_Always_WorkMar5

One ceed/cede/ces story, using all 10 words

 

Have a good day!

 

-Mr. Potter

Homework

Homework Mar 3 (Mon)

Well, today was a wonderful three hour early dismissal.

This means our day went as follows:

8:30 – 9:30 specials

9:30-10:30 really really fast math

10:30 – 11:15 super fast language arts and individual conferences about interims.

Lunch

Go home

 

I’m not bitter, really……

We are still working on equivalent fractions, especially when using them to add and subtract fractions.  We had a relatively poor showing on our math assessment from Friday on this, so we are revisiting this extremely important part of working with fractions.

Students have a simplifying fractions worksheet to do for tomorrow.  Unfortunately I have misplaced the file for this, so I can not link it here.  My apologies!

Students can also begin work on their ceed/cede/cess story.  I looked at the data from our vocabulary quizzes, and the week where the students wrote a story using all 10 of their words had much better results than the other weeks.  This makes sense, as it gave students more chance to use the words.  For this reason I am again assigning the students to write a short story using all ten of their vocabulary words.  This week it is ceed/cede/cess words.  This will be due WEDNESDAY, but students are encouraged to get a good start on it.

 

Grades/Interims:

Students took home their interim reports today.  If you have any questions about these, please let me know.

The grades are put into the website and I have a simple ‘publish draft’ button to press to make them available to you.  Unfortunately we still have 2 students who have yet to finish their latest tests.  For this reason I can’t quite press that ‘publish’ button as it would make all of the tests and answers available to all of the students.  As soon as these students finish their tests tomorrow I will make all of this information available and let you know here.

 

tldr;

One equivalent fractions worksheet

Start work on ceed/cede/cess story (due WEDNESDAY)

 

Have a good early release day, and see you tomorrow! (hopefully at the regular time!)

Uncategorized

Homework Feb 28th (Fri)

And by homework, I mean homework for me!

Students only have to do their reading log for the weekend.  The students received a new reading log today, so they should have that for parents to sign.

 

I will spend this weekend updating the forum.  By Monday all of the students’ grades and weekly homework updates will be in their personal sub-forum.  If you have any questions, please send me an e-mail or a call.

 

Have a good weekend!

 

-Mr. Potter