Monday is our Math EOG!!

If you haven’t yet heard, our math EOG is on Monday.  We have spent this entire week getting ready, and the kids are doing very well.  Here are just some review notes and problems that we did today.  Most everyone should have these already copied down into their math journals, but here is another opportunity to solve them and look at the answers before Monday.  There is one of each general type of problem (adding, subtracting fractions, multiplying fractions and decimals, area and volume, etc etc).

ReviewNotes

FinalReviewProblems

FinalReviewProblemsSolved

Please get a good night’s rest on Sunday!

Eat your breakfast on Monday!

and relax, because you’re going to do fine.  Take your time, double check your answers, and SAVE ROGER!

Have a good weekend

-Mr. Potter

A full day of air conditioning was enjoyed by all!

It was fantastic!

So this morning we really got down to business, to make up for yesterday.  We learned our last ‘new’ thing before the EOGs: Division by fractions.  We took a lot of notes, did a lot of activities involving some folded paper, and did a lot of learning.  The notes the students took, and a refresher for you if you need it, are here:

DivisionByFractions

For homework, the students should completely and totally finish their review problems packet.  They should redo the problems on the back of each page, and ensure they have double checked their work.  They will turn this in tomorrow for a test grade.  I will be checking and grading it for accuracy.  If they can understand and do these problems, then I am very hopeful about their prospects on the EOGs.  If there are still some that are giving them problems, they should let me know which so we can work on them.  We only have two days of review left!

CC 5th grade word problems

They also received a page of division with fractions problems to work out tonight:

DividingFractionsHomework

We spent the remainder of our day finishing up some M-class assessments and doing a topic test on fractions.  I haven’t graded the tests yet, but what I saw looked very promising.

You might also like to know that Roger has taken very few beatings these last few days.  Our Cordelia also made him an awesome eye-patch for his poor empty socket.

I think he looks awesome – how about you?

SO tldr;

students are doing great

air conditioning = hooray

finish redoing the math problems packet

CC 5th grade word problems

division with fractions worksheet

DividingFractionsHomework

Roger is safe……for now

Have a good one!

-Mr. Potter

Oh man, what an awful day!!!

So, the air conditioning did not work in our building for the entire morning.

yeah….24 fifth graders, and one sweaty teacher stuck in a room for 3 hours in 90 degree temperatures.

One word comes to mind:

aromatic

We took some periodic breaks, going outside into the shade, until finally we had had enough, and we all went outside to work in the shade.

So our morning was kind of shot, sadly.  We did do some rotations and math review, but mostly we just sweated, and wished we were at the pool.

This meant that once the air was finally back on in the afternoon, we finished up our math review that we should have done during the morning.

So, we spent our entire day on math!

And a trip to the coool, cooooool, wonderful media center.

For math homework, students should do PAGES 3, 4, & 5 of their review problems packet.  They should redo the problems on the back of the page, and make sure their answers are in sentence form.

CC 5th grade word problems

They also got a topic test 15 to take and do at home.  This should be a freebie level 3 or 4 test!

We have been doing a lot of work in small groups and independent work, and I’m very impressed with the majority of our class.  They are working hard even when the teacher isn’t looking right at them.  This is exactly how they have to be when they go to middle and high school.  Teachers are going to give them an assignment, and a deadline, and it’s up to them to make sure it gets done on time.  I have high hopes that our students will do well there.

so, tldr;

today was hot

Students should re-do pages 3,4,5 in their math problems packet

CC 5th grade word problems

Students should completely ace their topic 15 test

have an air conditioned day!

-Mr. Potter

We had an absolutely fantastic morning today.  We had little calling out, and we had almost everyone on task for the majority of the morning.  We were actually on negative 4 before we even went to specials.  It was really great.

In Math, we got a good amount of review done and we’re finishing up our unit on multiplying decimals.  For homework tonight, student’s should do the first two rows of this worksheet.  They don’t need to write sentences indicating what their first number of each row is, but they should definitely be thinking it.

MultiplyingDecimalsMay13

In Language Arts we had some good conversations about media, and commercials, and being critical consumers of media.  Our reading selection for the week deals with this topic.  It’s a great thing to talk about with your students, and we had some heated discussion about some commercials the students had seen, especially dealing with the fushigi ball.  Everyone has a story about being duped by an ad.

Students should answer the question on page 205 and 206 in their motivation reading book dealing with this passage.

In Science we are doing some quick review of electricity, and energy.  We ran into some bumps last week when talking about electromagnets and maglevs, so we’re fixing those this week.

So tldr;

first two rows of multiplying decimals

MultiplyingDecimalsMay13

p 205 and 206 in motivation reading

read for 35 mins and fill in your reading log!

PS:

Another update about the field trip will be going home tomorrow, and please remember that we have an informational meeting JUST FOR ADULTS on Thursday, at 5:45 in the media center to talk about our upcoming unit on human growth and development.  We hope to see you there.

Have a good night all!

-Mr. Potter

I think a very good time was had by all today.

but man, was it warm out.

We started off with our little class party.  It was unreal how many snacks everyone brought in.  We ended up sharing our snacks with the ENTIRE grade level.  Thank you very much to everyone who sent something with their student.  Everyone was stuffed.  So much so, that by the time we had finished watching our movie, everyone was ready for our NAP TIME:

We also had some people just snuggle up with a good book

We then had our lunch, and then a very fun-filled day of games and activities.

Grats to the girls for winning the tug of war THREE times in a row!  Our guys need to remember to hold onto the rope!

My hat’s off to Mr. McLaney because that was an absolutely crazy field day.  He had been setting it up all of yesterday until late, and then was here this morning at the crack of dawn to finish.  If you see him, please let him know how much we appreciate all of his hard work.

Also if you are one of the people who graciously volunteered their time to come in today and help run field day, thank you so much.  It would not have been possible without your help.  I know the kids had a fantastic time.

I gave the students a pass on homework until Monday, so if they didn’t have it today, they can still bring it in Monday for full credit!  It’s just their reading log and their vocabulary story, so it’s not too much at all.

I hope everyone has a restful evening after that packed day.

I’ll see everyone Monday! (FINALLY no more Saturday school!)

-Mr. Potter

Countdown to Field Day!  3 days to go!

In Math today, we talked a bit more about division involving decimals, but it seems that the students are doing very well here, and we are probably moving on tomorrow.  I had planned to move on to strategies for comprehension when it comes to word problems……

HOWEVER…

Today when we had to double check an answer that involved multiplying decimals, it became quite clear that we still have some gaps there.  As such, we will probably be doing that for the rest of this short week.

Students should finish the final two rows of their converting decimals to fractions worksheet tonight.

In Language Arts, we started reading a new selection about electromagnets, and maglevs.  We are really working on reading comprehension, so we will continue to do short reading passages, and then answer comprehension and critical thinking questions afterwards.

Students should complete pages 255 & 256 in their motivation reading books tonight.  EXCEPT for question 3, and question 5.  After we talk more as a class, I would like them to look at these questions.

In Science, we are still talking about the weather, and today we read a short passage about the job of meteorologist.

Finally, we watched a short video about the process of turning fossil fuels into electricity, as we had some questions about that from our reading last week.

Students took home an updated itinerary for the field trip next Friday.  Please make sure you see it in their Monday folders!

tldr;

in Math,

last two rows of converting fractions to decimals

In Language Arts,

Pages 255 and 256 in Motivation Reading EXCEPT #3 and #5.

Have a good night!

-Mr. Potter

Today was actually a beautiful day outside.

And of course we had a fundraiser during our recess ……

but then we had recess in the gym! 🙂

Today in math we talked more about converting decimals to fractions using the idea that something like 2/6 = 2 ÷ 6, and we can now do a problem like 2 ÷ 6 on paper.  

We also talked about how one of our weaknesses as a class is reading comprehension when it comes to math problems.  We can do the math fine, but taking a word problem like:

Five people are running a relay race.  The race is six miles long.  Each person runs the same length of the race.  How much does each person run?

And picking out the important information and figuring out what we have to do, has been a struggle for us.  This problem is really asking what is six miles divided among five people.  We can do that math:

6 ÷ 5

So we will be working on strategies for reading comprehension quite a bit this quarter.

For math homework, students should do the next two rows on their converting fractions to decimals worksheet.  This will leave just the bottom two rows undone.

FractionsToDecimals

In Language Arts, we again talked about reading comprehension, and went over the Motivation Reading passages we had done on Monday and Tuesday.  Especially with questions that are ‘right there’ questions (questions where the answer is stated explicitly in the text) there is no excuse to get these incorrect.  We talked about finding evidence for our answers, and constructing arguments for or against a given answer choice.  The students then got a chance to defend their incorrect answers on a sheet of paper and turn it in to me.  I’m looking forward to see what these arguments look like tonight, and hopefully giving out some partial credit.

Tonight in Language Arts students should write a story that incorporates their vocabulary words.  I really like how creative our kids can get with these things, and I hope it helps cement these new words into their vocabularies.

We did have an assembly to talk about the school fundraiser.  The students also got a packet all about it.  Please take a look at them with your students tonight.

In Science, we talked again about weather, specifically today about thunderstorms.  I was impressed with how the students read together in their groups about thunderstorms and answered the questions together today.  We are still improving our ability to work well with others, but I liked what I saw.

tldr;

two rows of converting fractions to decimals

FractionsToDecimals

one story that uses all of our vocabulary words

Tomorrow is Friday!  That means we have some quizzes to take!!  Consider yourselves warned!

Also, remember that THERE IS SCHOOL AGAIN THIS SATURDAY.  Your kids aren’t lying to you because they just love coming to school so much.  It really does exist.  We will be here, learning, and getting smarter.

Have a good evening

-Mr. Potter

Decimals, Division, and Dragons, oh my!

Well, not really dragons.

We are in full swing, connecting our algorithm for dividing money among people to our long division algorithm.  For homework, the students should do math problems involving division of decimals.  They may either do this using their sentences, or they may use the long division algorithm.  If they take it upon themselves to do both, that would be fantastic, however.

In case you need a look at the example again, here it is:

LongDivision

The two problems they should do are:

456.27 ÷ 3 =

2394.8 ÷ 2 = 

Students should also finish the motivation reading passage, and answer the questions on page 63-66.

Students will turn in their motivation reading books tomorrow for a GRADE on this passage.  Please make sure it is finished, and done well.

We also introduced the new vocabulary words.  Students should write a sentence for each word, but this is not due until THURSDAY.

One of our words this week is ‘fractal’, so we watched the first 10ish minutes of this video to help explain it.  It’s a great video, and if you have time, go ahead and watch the rest!

We went into the computer lab this morning and took another Lexille Star test.  We talked a bit beforehand about taking these kinds of tests seriously, as they give us as teachers very valuable information about students’ abilities.   The students put in a great effort this time around, and I was very happy with the results as a whole.

We talked about weather and that it is the state of the atmosphere.  We also learned that air moves from areas of high pressure to areas of low pressure, and that this is what causes the wind.  We will be exploring weather this semester, and I’m looking forward to all of the great science we will get to do!

so tldr;

In math two problems done either way, or both, students’ choice:

456.27 ÷ 3 =

2394.8 ÷ 2 = 

In Language Arts, pages 63-66 in motivation reading.  The motivation reading books will be turned in for a GRADE on these pages tomorrow, as well as yesterday’s 67-68.  Make sure they are done well!

That’s all for today, have a good night!

-Mr. Potter

Another day, another dollar!

The students have been working quite a bit this week with play money, as they explore ways to divide numbers and decimals.  We are using the play money and the idea of dollars and cents to explain the basic algorithm for dividing numbers used in long division.  Today we did all the way to dividing dollar amounts involving pennies, and the students have two problems to do using this method.  As it stands we have developed this algorithm for dividing our cash:

1. Hand out ___ tens to each person.
2. We have ____ tens leftover.
3. Turn our ___ leftover tens into ____ ones.
4. We now have ____ ones.
5. Hand out ____ ones to each person.                                                                       6. We have ____ ones left over.                                                                                          7. Turn our ____ leftover ones into ____ dimes.                                                          8. We now have ____ dimes.                                                                                              9. Hand out ____ dimes to each person.                                                                      10.  We have ___ dimes left over.                                                                              11.  Turn our ___ leftover dimes into pennies.                                                          12.  We now have ___ pennies.                                                                                    13.  Hand out ___ pennies to each person.

This essentially simplifies to “hand out our biggest denomination as much as we can.  Do we have any leftover?  Turn it into a smaller denomination and hand those out….repeat”.  This is what is occurring in something like….

You may not have realized this, but what is going on there is first you look at your 5 hundreds, decide that you can’t hand out a hundred to each of your 12, so you broke down your hundreds into tens.  Now you have 51 tens.  You can hand those out, 4 to each person in fact.  Now you’ve handed out 48 tens, and you have 3 remaining.  You break those down into ones.  Now you have 36 ones.  You hand those out, 3 to each person, and now you’ve divided up all of your number.

The students have two problems to do USING OUR ALGORITHM – NOT using the long division process.  This is really about getting them to figure out what is going on under the hood so to speak, with long division.

The problems they should do are:

1.   $75.60 divided among 3 people

2.  $35.10 divided among 5 people

In Language arts we finished up a journal entry talking about our worst experience from our break.  Then as groups we combined these bad break stories into one big bad break story and shared them with the class.  They were actually very entertaining, and I recommend you ask your student what their group’s story was about, and what story was their favorite from the class.  Prepare for ridiculousness!

Also we have been working on stamina reading in Language Arts, and we have gotten up to reading for a full 25 minutes straight without any of our kids losing focus.  We will keep going until we can stay focused for a full 30 minutes every single time with no problems at all.

In Language Arts, the students need to finish writing their stories that contain the 10 vocabulary words for the week.  this IS DUE TOMORROW ON SATURDAY.  If for whatever reason they are not here tomorrow, then it is due on Monday.

REMINDER REMINDER: THERE IS SCHOOL TOMORROW, SATURDAY, THE 26th OF APRIL.

Buses will run as normal.

The school day will run until 12 noon

There will be no lunch or breakfast served, but students are more than welcome to bring a snack!

ok the tldr;

2 math problems using our method:

1.   $75.60 divided among 3 people

2.  $35.10 divided among 5 people

Finish vocabulary story

THERE IS SCHOOL TOMORROW! COME! ENJOY!  LEARN!

Have a nice night!

-Mr. Potter

Seeing as I am a benevolent (and realistic) teacher, we have no homework tonight.

We DO have school tomorrow (Saturday).  I am expecting attendance to be on the lite side, so I am not going to assign homework tonight.

BUT….

The students did have a group of pages to read in their science book (F58-F65) and a worksheet associated with it.

They also have a page in Motivation Math (page 74) that I would really like done by Monday.  I WOULD REALLY APPRECIATE THAT PAGE BEING DONE BY MONDAY.  BUT it’s not homework.  BUT MAN WOULD IT BE AWESOME IF THOSE PAGES WERE DONE BY MONDAY.  BUT it’s not homework…..but woah, would it be great if those pages got done…….

We had a day full of review and our very last math quiz.  We also took some time to look around the school at the students’ science fair projects.  They really did a wonderful job on this, and it will give them a leg-up when they have to do it in middle school.

In other news, the last $40 for the May 16th field trip is due by the end of next week before we track out.  Some have already gotten this in, and it is greatly appreciated.

There is also snow on the horizon, expected to hit us next Tuesday.  I wish I was joking.

*sigh*

See you at school tomorrow!

-Mr. Potter