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

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

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

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!)

Hello all,

Since we did not quite get to everything yesterday due to some mis-communication on my part, I am essentially making yesterday’s homework tonight’s homework.  Sorry about that!

Today we talked about equivalent fractions, and why we might want to express a fraction in a simplified form, or with a different denominator.  Essentially simplified fractions are usually easier to understand and visualize for us.  It can be easier to see in our minds something like 1/2 as opposed to 34/68.  It might also make fractions easier to compare.

For instance, let’s pretend that you were offered either 1 piece from a pizza that was cut into 4 equal pieces, or 2 pieces from a pizza that was cut into 7 equal pieces.  So essentially you were offered 1/4th of a pizza or 2/7ths of a pizza.  Which do you choose?

It might be difficult to visualize which is larger or smaller in this case.  But we can find equivalent fractions for 1/4 and 2/7 so that they both have common denominators, or have been split into the same number of pieces.

In order to do this, we can find a common denominator that we can convert each of our fractions into.  In this case we chose 28 as our common denominator.

In order to convert 1/4 to 28ths, we multiply by a form of one.  If you remember, multiplying by 1 will not change the value of a number.  The form of one we chose was 7/7, as this will give us a fraction with a denominator of 28.  If we multiply 1/4 by 7/7 we end up with 7/28.

So 1/4 = 7/28

In the same vein, we multiply 2/7 by 4/4, and find that 2/7 is equivalent to 8/28

So 2/7 = 8/28

We would want, therefore, to take the 2 pieces!

*whew* if you’re still reading this, kudos to you.

In science, we are talking about motion, and forces.  We had a very interesting discussion today about what let’s us move about on the Earth, and why we would NOT be able to move about quite so easily in space.

Space is not like swimming, where you can push on the water to propel yourself.  In space, there’s nothing to ‘push’ against to move yourself forward.  Without that force, you’d just be stuck in one spot, forever!

So we have two worksheets, dealing with equivalent fractions, and then using equivalent fractions to convert fractions to decimals (hint: convert it to x/100 first!).

As always, we have our 35 minutes of reading, and they should have read up through chapter 14 by tomorrow in The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe.  We will finish it by the end of this week!

We actually finished the personification worksheet in class, so no worries about that.

tldr;

2 math worksheets

Feb24FractionToHundredths

Feb24EquivalentFractions

35 mins reading (to include ch 14 in TLTW&TW)

See you all tomorrow!

DISREGARD THIS POST please.  I apologize.  I just got in touch with the substitute and apparently things did not go quite as I had planned today.  There is no homework due tomorrow.  These will likely be due Wednesday.

Many apologies, as I had a bit of a family emergency today and was therefore unable to get to school.  I hope to come back tomorrow and hear good things from our substitute, Ms. Walker!

The homework for tonight was to read chapter 14 in The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, as well as three worksheets.  Two math worksheets, working with equivalent fractions, and one worksheet asking students to identify personification and create some of their own.  We will be working quite a bit with figurative language throughout this semester.

Equivalent Fractions

Feb24EquivalentFractions

Fractions to Hundredths using equivalent fractions

Feb24FractionToHundredths

Personification

Feb24PersonificationSheet

Please remember that we are still using the identity property to find our equivalent fractions, and you must show me what form of one you used!

Looking forward to seeing you all tomorrow

-Mr. Potter

Today was a fantastically fun filled day of assessment!

Students started their day reviewing the mathematical concepts we have been working on.  Simplifying fractions and multiplying fractions have been, and will continue to be, our focus for a bit.

After that, we went to the computer lab and took our Star test.  We followed that up with some Dreambox Math.

Next, we took a Math assessment.

And then, a Language Arts assessment!

If you hear groans and moans tonight, that is why!

We had indoor recess today, and with a lack of things to do, many students turned to our unifix cubes and started building things.  We have some really creative minds here.  Some students built towers and toy tops, but one student built something a little different:

Do you know what flag this is?

In Science, we’re working on forces and motion.   We watched a video today about the rides at Disney World and the imagineers that work there.  Ask your child if they remember what a force is (a push or a pull on an object).  If you’re feeling super adventurous, ask your child what force is at work that brings an object in motion to rest (friction).

There’s no real homework for the weekend, except students should continue reading each night for 35 minutes and fill out their reading log, and sometime this weekend be sure they have read up through chapter 13 in The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe.

We had a very good day today.  Everyone is up in arms over whether or not bad deeds a bad person make, or that there are always extenuating circumstances.  We got so heated we just had to create a Padlet so everyone could share their ideas.  Feel free to go there and see what your student and the others had to say!

What’s your opinion?

For homework today, students should do their 35 minutes of reading, including chapter 12 of the Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe.  A few students have not kept up, and have unfortunately been left out of our discussions as of late.

Students should also be ready to turn in a COMPLETE rough draft of their fantasy story, beginning to end.

Finally we have two metaphor sheets that will be due tomorrow.  Similes and metaphors!  We may or may not have an assessment on this tomorrow! *HINT* *HINT*

MetaphorHomeworkFeb20

It’s a lite day, but I really need to have that rough draft completed and turned in tomorrow.    See you all tomorrow!

We are getting back into the swing of things!  Always nice to actually be at school on a Wednesday!  Been a while since we had that.

As always, we have our 35 minutes of reading and reading log tonight.  For at least some of that, students should read chapter 11 in The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe.

We had a very lively discussion yesterday and today about whether doing bad things (like Edmund does) necessarily makes you a bad person, or whether there are mitigating circumstances.  The students were very animated with their answers.  It was a lot of fun.  We might have to do a journal response so that students can get their ideas out.

The students should think ahead, as a full rough draft of their fantasy story is due on Friday.  I will read these over the weekend and offer some feedback on Monday.  Therefore it is IMPERATIVE that students have a full rough copy to hand in to me Friday.

In math, we are working on multiplying fractions, and exactly what that means.  We are focusing on the idea that multiplying by a fraction can mean taking a fraction (less than a whole) of something else.  So we are interpreting an equation like 1/2 x 1/2 as taking one half of one half.  We have been modeling this with bar models, as using circles and pies can get messy and difficult to read.  This is by no means the ONLY thing that an equation like that can mean, but it is our starting point.

To demonstrate their understanding of this possible interpretation, students should write a story problem for the equation 1/3 x 3/4, and turn this in, solved, tomorrow.

Finally, we just started our work on figurative language, and students have two simile worksheets to finish tonight as well.  Remember that similes are when we use ‘like’ or ‘as’ to compare two things.

That was long, here’s the tldr;

2 simile worksheets

SimileHomeworkFeb19

one math story problem

read ch 11

Keep writing fantasy story 

Today we have a bit lighter load.

We first have our 35 minutes of reading as always.

For part of that, students should read chapter 10 in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.

Today in class, students did some peer groups, where students TAG each other:

Tell something they liked

Ask a question

Give a suggestion

Students wrote their peer’s suggestions on the back of their first page of their writing.  We then shared the suggestions to ensure they made sense and were doable.

Tonight, students should re-write at least one paragraph of their writing, focusing on the recommendation from their peers.

Finally, students have a multiplying fractions worksheet.  This sheet asks students to answer in lowest terms (simplify).  They should therefore multiply the fractions, and then simplify them.

If students need the sheet it is given below, with the first problem done.  If you need to help your student with the homework, please focus on the fact that when simplifying, we are really dividing by 1.  When we divide by 1, we don’t change the value of our fraction, we simply change the form of the number.  When we divide by 2/2 we are simply dividing by a form of the number 1.

MathHwkFeb18