There is a repeat of the info about APTT and Parent Teacher Conferences at the bottom of this post.  Please read it if you have not yet done so.

Another good day!

We did many more small groups this morning dealing with main idea, and Ms. Hertling came and assisted us as well.  We are really trying to get specific with our details.  This will also help us later when we need to find evidence and other specific information to support our answer/our opinion.

Tonight students have two pieces of language arts homework.  First, they need to answer some questions about the reading from last night.  As always, each answer should come with reasoning.  This means a sentence that explains why they picked their answer.

BattleBotsQuestions

We also talked a bit about Constance

In Science we took a quick quiz on the vocabulary from yesterday, and then introduced 5 new words that students should define tonight:

Scavenger

Producer

Consumer

Decomposer

Parastite

 

In math today we had a long conversation about addition and subtraction.  We talked about how addition is combining.  We then talked about how subtraction helps us with two types of problems:

Finding the difference

AND

Taking away

I asked students to please think about how and why we use subtraction for two completely different types of problems like this.  For instance I could say

I had 4 candy bars and Hsa had 7.  How many more does Hsa have?  He has 7-4=3 candy bars.

I could also say

Hsa has 7 candy bars.  I took away 4.  How many does Hsa have left? He has 7-4=3 left

 

These problems are VERY different, and yet we use subtraction to solve them both.  Why is that?

Tomorrow we’ll talk more about this!

 

so, tl;dr

Another lite day!

Answer questions about Battle Bots with reasoning!

BattleBotsPassage

BattleBotsQuestions

Tell me about Constance!

Blank char sheet

Define these words in your science journal: scavenger, producer, consumer, decomposer, parasite

 

And read!

 

Have a good one,

 

-Mr. Potter

 

 

 

APPT and Parent-Teacher Conference info:

Today students took home information regarding our Academic Parent Teacher Team meeting.  The meetings is the evening of the 17th, which is next Thursday.  I would very much appreciate seeing everyone there.  I will probably bug you about this.  Apologies in advance!

I have also set up a sign-up genius for parent teacher conferences.  There is a link at the bottom, and also up at the top under ‘general links’.  The majority of the times up right now are are either 7-8 in the morning, 4-5 in the afternoon, or 5-6 in the afternoon.  If these do not work for you please let me know.  If you give me a time that works for you, I will make it work for me.  If you don’t sign up for one of these, I will probably also bug you about that.  Apologies in advance!

 

There is APTT info and parent teacher conference info at the bottom of the post.  Please read it!

 

Tuesday already!  The students came in obviously refreshed this morning, and we had a really fantastic day.

 

This morning our school counselor Ms. Carter came and talked to us about middle school and our future.  She gave us a very inspired talk about the importance of responsibility and taking responsibility for our own learning.  She talked with us about how school is an opportunity to learn and better yourself, and that it is our responsibility to do the best we can.

We then talked about main ideas and summaries, and how they are similar and different.  We talked about how a main idea is the most important idea – basically what the story is about.  It is often able to be communicated in a single sentence.  We looked at some newspaper/Time for Kids headlines/subheadings and noticed that those are often in fact the main idea of the selection.  Students then practiced filling in a main idea graphic organizer with Ms. Hertling using Time for Kids.

Tonight, students received a little story about battling robots.  They should fill in a main idea graphic organizer for this selection.

BattleBotsPassage

Organizer example:

MainIdeaOrganizer

 

Next we took a look at our plants and they are getting HUGE.  Ask your student how big their corn or their cucumbers were today.  We definitely have some stalks that are reaching 80cm.

In Science we will be working a bit on vocabulary this and next week.  We took a quick pre-test on this last week, and the results were … less than optimal.

Tonight students wrote down 5 words in their science journals.  Their job tonight is to define these five words using whatever resource they deem reliable.  Their science textbooks, their parents or siblings, even the internet is fair game here.  The five words they should define are:

predator

prey

carnivore

herbivore

omnivore

Some students may already know the definition of some or all of these.  Even so, they should look up a definition to ensure their own ideas are correct.

 

Finally, we spent some time reviewing our area models and took our quiz we missed on Friday.  This quiz had some puzzle type questions in it utilizing the distributive property of multiplication over addition.  This will let me know who is really getting it, and who needs some more clarification.

 

so, tl;dr

Read about battle bots and give me an organizer identifying the main idea, supported by three details!

BattleBotsPassage

MainIdeaOrganizer

 

Define these 5 words (even if you think you know them, double check!)

predator, prey, carnivore, herbivore, omnivore

 

And as always, read!

 

-Mr. Potter

 

 

 

APPT and Parent-Teacher Conference info:

Today students took home information regarding our Academic Parent Teacher Team meeting.  The meetings is the evening of the 17th, which is next Thursday.  I would very much appreciate seeing everyone there.  I will probably bug you about this.  Apologies in advance!

I have also set up a sign-up genius for parent teacher conferences.  There is a link at the bottom, and also up at the top under ‘general links’.  The majority of the times up right now are are either 7-8 in the morning, 4-5 in the afternoon, or 5-6 in the afternoon.  If these do not work for you please let me know.  If you give me a time that works for you, I will make it work for me.  If you don’t sign up for one of these, I will probably also bug you about that.  Apologies in advance! 🙂

Conference sign-up

I’m back!  Also, TOMORROW IS EARLY RELEASE.  We have a modified morning schedule and students will be dismissed at 12:30.

 

Mrs. Alford said the students were pretty good yesterday.  I was very happy to hear this.

 

Unfortunately right after I read a favorable note from Mrs. Alford, I was met with 14 students who did not do their homework.  This was very disheartening.  I understand that I did not update the website yesterday, but Mrs. Alford was very clear with what was homework, as was evidenced by the 9 students who turned it in without a problem.  As a consequence students who did not have all of their homework spent their lunch time in the classroom finishing said homework while they ate.

 

This morning we had our fun run!  The kids ran their little hearts out, and were absolutely soaked by the end.  Almost everyone in the classroom got a full 35 laps in!

I will be sending home envelopes to collect final pledges tomorrow, or you can also send in your pledge via the www.funrun.com website.  Thank you so much to everyone for helping with this.  We really appreciate the outpouring of support we received.

 

We spent what little time we had this morning doing language arts rotations.

We are focusing on finding the main idea and writing summaries for short passages.  Tonight the students have another short passage to read and summarize (on a separate sheet of paper).  The summary should focus on the who/what/where/when/why of the passage.

mammoth_fossil_found_passage

There are also some questions to answer, and these should be accompanied by REASONING:

MammothFossilQuestions

When I say reasoning, I mean a sentence that often begins with “I know this because….”.  Then, I would like to hear why the student picked the answer.  They should be as specific as possible.  For instance:

I know this because it’s true. (This isn’t so great)

I know this because it said so in the passage.  (This is kinda ok…)

BUT

I know this because it said so in the 3rd paragraph. (THIS is better)

 

We have also been working on our biome brochures , and I must say I am very impressed with what the students are doing so far.  I look forward to seeing their finished products.

 

Next we measured our plants, and some of them are getting HUGE.  I expect to see them begin to blossom any day now, and the vegetables will soon follow.

 

Finally we talked again about breaking difficult problems into smaller, easier to do problems.  We also talked about how if we are multiplying 3-digit numbers, we are now breaking problems into even more pieces.  Tonight students have 4 math problems to do, and as always there is an example!

DPOMOA Sep 3

 

so tl;dr

summarize this passage:

mammoth_fossil_found_passage

answer these questions with reasoning:

MammothFossilQuestions

Do these math problems (with area models)

DPOMOA Sep 3

 

and read!

 

Have a good one,

 

-Mr. Potter

 

 

EARLY RELEASE TOMORROW!

Fun Run in just 2 days!

 

If you haven’t yet, please go to www.funrun.com and register.  We have our actual Fun Run on Thursday!

 

This morning we spent a good amount of time on our writing and doing individual writing conferences.  A good friend of mine, Ms. Hertling, came in to help us.  Ms. Hertling is an accomplished teacher, who has taught around the globe.  She spent the bulk of her time teaching English at the high school level.   She has agreed in her retirement to come in and help us with a few things this school year.  She will be here often on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.  She was very happy to read the students’ writing, and had tons of great things to say.

We got about half of our writing conferences done, and we’ll try to get the rest done tomorrow and Thursday.

We also talked about writing summaries and finding the main idea of a text.  We are often asking “who did what?” “When?” “where?” and “why?” in order to figure out the main idea or to summarize a text.

 

To practice thinking about these things, students tonight have a short article to read and summarize.  There are also some questions that go with the article.  They should answer these with reasoning, explaining their answers.

Device May Help Blind People See Passage

DeviceQuestions

 

We then talked again about finding information in texts.  We looked at our biome paper from yesterday and discussed what kind of keywords we looked at in order to find specific information in the index/glossary of our science textbooks.  The students did a pretty good job with this, and I was happy with their ability to pick out keywords from questions.  These are very important skills to have as they do research and are responsible for finding specific information on their own.

Tonight students should finish the back of the sheet.  They should include page numbers where they found the information for each question.

BiomeReview2

 

We then again talked briefly about our area models and multiplying multi digit numbers by breaking them down into smaller parts.  Tonight students have four problems to do in this manner.  Again, please refrain from talking with students about the standard algorithm for multiplying multi-digit numbers.  We are not interested in that at this point.  We are interested in getting students familiar with how multiplication is distributed across addition, and understanding how we break difficult problems down into small ones.  The standard algorithm will come later, and it will make much more sense because of the work we have already done.

Sep1DPOMOA

 

Finally we spent some time in the computer lab working on our biome brochures.  We talked about the different things we can do in word with text boxes, fonts, and all of the different options word processing software offers.  For many students this is overwhelming, but as we do more and more projects on the computers, they will become accustomed to it, and we will have less students erasing all of their work by accident (Which is something that happened today!).

 

so, tl;dr

Summarize this article, and answer the questions with reasoning:

Device May Help Blind People See Passage

DeviceQuestions

 

Answer the questions on this sheet using your science textbook, and include the page numbers where you got the information:

BiomeReview2

 

Do these problems using area models:

Sep1DPOMOA

 

And as always, read!

 

Have a good one,

 

-Mr. Potter

 

P.S. I have an appointment tomorrow, so I will be absent from school.  We will have a substitute, Mrs. Alford.  She is a retired teacher from Lockhart (who used to teach 5th grade even).  The students are in good hands, and I know I will come back and hear good things from Mrs. Alford.

See you Thursday!

Happy Monday!

 

Mondays are always a little loopy, as our schedule is all kinds of backwards due to the 5th grade teacher meeting at the end of the day.  So we have specials at the end of the day, and our morning is just crammed full of learning.

We started this morning going over COPS, which stands for:

Capitalization

Organization

Punctuation

Spelling

We got a hand-out to help us with editing our writing.  We then went through and highlighted each piece of punctuation in our paper.  This should help us look at each sentence individually and think about whether each sentence makes sense.  It will also help us find our run-on sentences.

Tonight students should edit their work by going through this checklist.  It should be very obvious whether or not they actually went through this checklist tomorrow.

EditingChecklist

 

Next we went over some biome vocabulary and talked about how we can find information in a textbook.  We looked at our science book’s glossary and index and saw that we could easily find information by starting there.  Students should continue to do this by answering some questions tonight.  They should answer these questions and include what page of their textbook they found the information on.  Answers without page numbers will not be accepted!

BiomeReview

We then spent some time in the computer lab doing Lexia and then some biome research.  Students are into the part of their research where they need to find specific information about the organisms in their chosen biome so that they can construct a food web.  They have to look up individual animals and plants to find out who eats whom.

Finally, we talked about using our area model to work with multi digit multiplication.  We can take a problem like:

14 x 16

and turn it into some much simpler problems:

=(10 + 4) x (10 + 6)

=(10 x 10) + (10 x 6) + (4 x 10) + (4 x 6)

=100 + 60 + 40 + 24

=224

Again this is *not* about the easiest method for performing multiplication (although conceptually this is a pretty good one), it is about understanding how we break things down, and it will eventually be used to explain how the standard algorithm for multi-digit multiplication works.

Tonight students have 3 problems to do like this.  As always, there is an example!

Aug31DoubleDigitDPOMOA

 

so, tl;dr

Edit your paper! Using this checklist! If you don’t, Mr. Potter WILL KNOW!!

EditingChecklist

Find some information in your textbook and answer some biome questions.  Write the page number where you found the information!

BiomeReview

Use the area model to answer these mutli digit multiplication questions!

Aug31DoubleDigitDPOMOA

 

And as always, read!

Jeez that was a lot of exclamation marks.  If I were using that checklist, I would know that I used wayyyy too many exclamation marks. 🙂

Have a good one,

 

-Mr. Potter

Tomorrow is Friday, which means….QUIZZES!!

We will have a reading comprehension quiz tomorrow, a new quiz on food webs, a quiz on breaking down difficult multiplication problems into easily manageable parts, AND a multiplication fact quiz.  It will be a busy day!

I highly recommend taking a look at your food web notes, and thinking about our discussion today about what happens when organisms are removed from ecosystems due to various reasons (natural disaster, human interference, etc).  For math, if the distributive property of multiplication over addition is still giving you problems I also recommend looking at our homework over the last few days, especially the examples.

 

We started our day with a little bit of writing time.  We have spent a little bit of time each day writing our stories, and tomorrow students will be turning in a rough draft.

They have three parts to turn in with their draft (these should all be in their writing folder):

character map  Blank char sheet

story map StoryElements

setting write-up Setting Organizer

And of course, their actual draft.

I’ll take a look at these over the weekend and we will start making our short storybooks next week.

 

In science we had a long discussion about how organisms being removed from an ecosystem can dramatically impact the other organisms in the ecosystem.  We made a food web for the Eagles and Peregrine falcons we read about the other day, and then speculated on what likely happened to the small bird, snake, and rodent populations when the large birds went almost extinct.

It is important that we develop an idea that organisms within an ecosystem are connected, and have an affect on one another.

 

In math we did some math centers and small groups.  We will be incorporating small groups and math centers slowly as we make sure we are ready for it.  Giving students the responsibility of working independently is a big deal, and we will practice quite a bit more until we are doing this regularly.

Tonight students should finish their multiplication flash cards.  They should go from 3 x 1 all the way through 9 x 9.

They should then study these because we have a quiz on them tomorrow!

 

 

so, tl;dr

a pretty easy night (if you’ve been working diligently up to this point)

Complete your short story rough draft and be sure you have your graphic organizers finished as well:

Blank char sheet

StoryElements

Setting Organizer

Tomorrow you will simply turn in your writing folder with all of this in it.

Finish your multiplication flash cards and study them (because we have a quiz tomorrow!)

 

And as always, read!

 

Have a good one,

 

-Mr. Potter

 

P.S. Tomorrow is also our celebration for our gold medal!  Students may wear pajamas/bring a stuffed animal if they would like 🙂

 

Unfortunately we had only six people turn in their summaries for the reading last night.  As such, the great majority of students today spent their lunch in the classroom eating and finishing their homework.

We had a talk about how the only way that we get better at something is by practicing.  If we are not putting in the practice, we are not going to improve.  Thus, not doing the practice is not an option.

In Language Arts we did some more writing and had some conferences about our stories so far.  The students have some great ideas for their stories!

We next introduced some vocabulary words.  We will be working with Greek and Latin roots a good deal this year.  Students will receive lists of words, and we will do some word sorting, story writing, and other activities with them.

PedList

Tonight students should write a sentence using each word, for a total of ten sentences.

We talked about how each word on the list is a noun, and what sentences with nouns look like.

Something like “I biped him” or “He is very biped” doesn’t exactly make sense.  However, something like “I am a biped” makes sense as biped is a noun.

 

Next we had another little pep rally about the boosterthon fundraiser.  We will have a little pep rally each day before specials where students will watch a video of children around the world playing sports, and what sportsmanship looks like in other countries.

 

We then caught up on some of our Mysterious Benedict Society as we have fallen a tad behind and the students were insistent that we find out what was happening with our student secret agents!

 

Finally, we talked more about how we can turn difficult multiplication problems into simpler problems by breaking them down into pieces.  Mathematics is all about breaking things down into easier to understand and perform operations, and understanding this from an early stage is important.  We started doing a bit more complex problems, and multiplying three digit numbers using our area model/distributed property of multiplication over addition type strategies.  Tonight students have 5 problems to do in this way (and there is of course an example as well):

The fifth problem is a thinker!

DPOMOAAug26

 

so, tl;dr

A lite night tonight:

Write a sentence for each of these vocabulary words.  Use the word *correctly* as a noun in each sentence

PedList

Do the following problems by breaking them down into easier problems and using area models as we have been:

DPOMOAAug26

 

And as always, read!

 

Have a good one,

-Mr. Potter

 

P.S. If you didn’t get a chance, please check out the funrun post in yesterday’s update and register on funrun.com.

Woohooo! Boosterthon!!

 

Today students received a boosterthon information pamphlet, as well as their interims.  Please make sure you take a look at these, and please get the interims signed and back to me.

 

So this morning we talked quite a bit about reading closely for comprehension.  We didn’t do as well as I would have hoped on our last reading test, and I’d like to make sure that students are using all of the tools at their disposal in order to understand a text.

We read a passage on our own and then with a partner.  We identified an important detail in each paragraph and then looked at those to identify the main idea of the passage.  Tonight students should write a paragraph summarizing the selection.  They should make sure they include the details they have identified.  We came up with some sentences together:

Scientists took Bald Eagles from Wisconsin to Manhattan.  Peregrine Falcons were close to being extinct from the use of DDT, but the government banned DDT in 1972 and Congress passed the endangered species act.

They should add their other details tonight to create a good summary.

Big Birds, Big City Passage

 

They also got a compare and contrast sheet, and they should fill that out tonight.

Compare and Contrast

 

Next we talked some about biomes and ecosystems.  Students are still a bit unsure about the differences between the two, so we took some notes on this.  Essentially ecoSYSTEMS describe the SYSTEMS within a biome.  An ecosystem is oftentimes smaller than a biome.  A biome is a large geographical area with similar climate/organisms.  We usually define 5 major biomes (desert, tundra, grassland, forest, aquatic), but these are further divided into more specific biomes.

Next we had our boosterthon pep rally.  Our boosterthon is our fun run fundraiser for the school.

This year we will be putting our money raised towards new playground equipment.  Essentially students will ask family and friends to make pledges for each lap they will run on our fun run day.

You can normally expect students to run anywhere from 30-35ish laps.  So if you were to give a pledge of $1 per lap, expect to be donating approximately $30-$35 dollars.  There is also an option to make a flat donation.  This means you can also simply pledge a flat $10 or whatever you would like.  Students got a pamphlet with more information today, so please take a look at it tonight.

If you get a chance, please head to www.funrun.com and register.  When registering you will provide your details.  Once you log in, you will register a participant (someone who makes a pledge).  You can either enter our school code (614-431) or you can do a lookup for Lockhart Elementary.  Then you fill in the information for what was pledged.  Thank you to those of you who choose to participate.

 

Finally, we talked some more about breaking multiplication problems down into more manageable pieces.  We started doing things like 7 x 13.  We can break this down into:

7 x (10 + 3)

= (7 x 10) + (7 x 3)

= 70 + 21

= 91

 

You will notice this is how the standard multiplication algorithm works (except the standard algorithm has some shortcuts thrown in).  Again, the entire purpose of this is to get students to understand how multiplication is distributed across addition, and to help them understand how to break down problems into easier problems.  Please do *not* simply teach your child the standard algorithm to answer these questions.

Tonight students have 5 problems to do.  Here is an example, and the problems:

DPOMOA Aug 24

 

 

so, tl;dr

Finish summary of the following passage, including details from each paragraph:

Big Birds, Big City Passage

Do the following problems, exactly as the example:

DPOMOA Aug 24

 

And as always, read!

 

Have a good one,

 

-Mr. Potter

 

Jeeeeez why can we not get anything done on Mondays?!

Just a heads up: we had a bit of an incident at the end of the day that really threw some things off.  As such I did not get a chance to hand out interims or the information regarding parent teacher conferences.  That will go home tomorrow.  My apologies.

So we started our day talking a good bit about our stories, and specifically the setting.  We talked about how we use our senses to understand the world around us.

We see things

We hear things

We smell things

We taste things

We feel things

When we are writing and describing our setting, these are the things we should be thinking about.  Are we describing what we want our reader to see? to hear?  to smell?

We took out a graphic organizer, and then made sure that we were describing these things in our story.  We read them to our partners, and they tried to pick the things out.

 

Next we went out and measured our plants.  We had a LOT of growth over the weekend, and they are looking really good.  I just hope tonight’s storm doesn’t wash us out again 🙁

 

Finally, we talked about multiplication, and how we can break down multiplication problems into easier sub-problems.  We did this using area models and the distributive property of multiplication over addition.  This is the property that essentially states:

6 x 7 =

6 x (4 + 3) =

(6 x 4) + (6 x 3) =

24 + 18 =

42

 

Tonight students have 4 problems to do just as we did an example:

DPOMOA Aug 24

 

Please take a look at the example and do the other problems in EXACTLY the same way.  I understand you might know that 7 x 6 is 42.  That is not the purpose of this exercise.  The purpose is to understand that you can break these problems down and understand how multiplication is distributed across addition.

This is the same way that you do problems like 45 x 62.  First you do 2 x 5, then 2 x 40, then 60 x 5, then 60 x 40.

Please ensure students work through these problems and follow the example.

And then of course it was already time to go.

 

so, tl;dr

a lite day – just do these 4 problems as per the example:

DPOMOA Aug 24

And read!!

 

Have a good one,

 

-Mr. Potter

Tomorrow is Taki and Chips day!

For our celebration for our silver medal, students may bring in some takis/chips/a snack and we will have a little bit of game time at the end of the day tomorrow.

We spent a very long time discussing word problems today.  While much of the class is getting it, some students are still having trouble visualizing what is going on within a story problem.

I can’t stress enough how important it is that students have a definite plan in their head before they tackle a word problem.  This is why we are asking students to go about word problems in a certain way, and to get them used to going back and forth between equations and word problems on their own.   Students should be asking themselves these questions:

What is the question asking me?

What information do I have?

What can I figure out based on the information I have?

Tonight students have a multi-step word problem to create on their own.  The following set of equations should be the way in which the problem is solved:

1 + 2 =

5 + 3 =

8 – 5 =

So it looks like we are first combining 1 of something and 2 of something else.  Then combining 5 of something with 3 of something.  And then either taking 5 away from 8 of something OR comparing 8 of something to 5 of something…….

 

Our science discussion was filled with vaults today!

I told the students that they were going to be locked into a vault after a nuclear war with their group.  Each group member would be allowed to bring one thing of their choice.  The vault has access to sunlight, clean running water, and a basic bathroom.  The vault is airtight.

On the first round, students all chose video games or ipods/tablets, etc.  I then acted out what would happen to each unfortunate group as they ran out of oxygen.

In the next round students brought plants (yay!). They didn’t run out of oxygen quite as quickly, but eventually the plants died off for some reason……

Eventually some groups picked up on the fact that they would need a whole slew of organisms to survive in their vault.  They would need something to produce food and oxygen for themselves.  They would also need something to break down waste and other things back into nutrients, so that the plants’ soil would not eventually become barren.

Tonight students should answer this question:

What ended up being important in order to survive in the vault?  What things did the groups who survived bring?  Why were those items important?

 

We also talked about food webs, and made some more of those in class.  Tonight students should make their own food web.  The food web should be realistic, and made up of real, currently living, organisms.  It must contain at minimum:

2 producers

2 consumers

2 decomposers

 

We also began writing some stories today.  Students had previously come up with a character of their own design.  We had used a character trait chart to design what type of character they would be.  We had also made story maps to help us begin our writing.

Today we talked about how establishing a setting is an important start to a story, and helps immerse our reader in our world.  It also helps them to create a picture of what is going on in their heads.

We wrote a quick introduction paragraph describing the setting of our story.  We then broke into pairs and did TAG with our partners:

Tell something you liked

Ask a question

Give a suggestion

Tonight students should RE-WRITE their setting paragraph, trying to improve it based on their own ideas, or based on the questions/suggestions they received from their partner.

 

SO, tl;dr:

Write a multi-step word problem that would be solved by the following equations:

1 + 2 =

5 + 3 =

8 – 5 =

 

Answer this question about our vault exercise:

What ended up being important in order to survive in the vault?  What things did the groups who survived bring?  Why were those items important?

 

Draw a food web that contains two producers, two consumers, and two decomposers

 

Re-write introduction that establishes a setting for their story.

 

And as always, read!

 

Have a good one,

 

-Mr. Potter