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

Tonight is McTeacher Night!  If you want to see me slinging fries, just come to the McDonalds on the corner from 5-7pm.  A percentage of all food sold during this time will go towards our PTA funds!

 

This morning was again a lot of work with shapes.  Overall, most of the class is getting it, and I’m confident we can fill in the last few gaps in understanding.

Tonight, students have a sheet that looks VERY similar to their sheet from yesterday.  However, tonight students shouldn’t label the shapes.  Instead, they should list the attributes of each shape, in this format:

number of sides

number of pairs of parallel sides

number of equal sides

number of 90 degree (square) corners

 

I’m not looking for things like ‘square’ or ‘parallelogram’.  I simply want the students to pay attention to the above attributes, and name them for each shape.

ShapeAttributesNov19

 

In case they need it, here again are those notes we’ve taken!

QuadrilateralNotes

 

We then had an absolutely bone-chilling 20 minutes of recess, before Mr. Potter (and most of the students) had enough.  We finished up our recess nice and cozy inside, with many of us playing some cards or board games.

In Language Arts we took a look at our paragraphs from yesterday.  Many students simply wrote down the problem (coral reefs are dying) and their solutions.  We had a talk about if this is really what we are going for when we are writing about problems and solutions.

We figured out that if there is a problem and we are presenting our reader with solutions, then what we probably want to do is PERSUADE our reader, and we talked about ways to do that.  Tonight students should re-write their paragraphs, with an eye to persuade me that this is a real problem that needs addressing, and also that their solutions are good ones.

ProblemSolutionPromptNov18

Students also received a new set of short passages to read.  They are to determine the text structure used with each passage, and draw a simple graphic organizer for each. (They’re about dinosaurs!)

TextStructuresNov19

 

Next we worked on our plant graphs a bit, and we were already out of time.  Can you believe we’re already half-way through the quarter somehow?

 

Unfortunately, I won’t be in the classroom tomorrow, as my wife is having a root canal done and she is not the biggest fan of the dentist.  I am sure the students will be fine, and the day will go like any other.

 

so, tl;dr

One sheet of shapes – name their attributes

ShapeAttributesNov19

re-write paragraph from yesterday – PERSUADE ME!

ProblemSolutionPromptNov18

Make some graphic organizers and identify some text structures

TextStructuresNov19

and as always, read for 35 minutes

 

 

Have a good one,

 

-Mr. Potter

 

shapes shapes and more shapes!

Our talks about shapes, area, and the way we classify objects have been going very well.  The students seem to have dusted out their head-cobwebs, and lots of things are suddenly clicking, or at least being remembered.

Tonight students again have some classifications to do.  For the shapes they must classify, they should list everything that each shape is.  That means square isn’t sufficient.  I want polygon, quadrilateral, parallelogram, rectangle, rhombus, and square.  For the questions that ask them to draw a shape, any example will do.

ShapeClassificationNov19

In case they need it, here is the hierarchy chart from yesterday (that they SHOULD have in their math journal!)

QuadrilateralHierarchy

 

In Language Arts we had some problems (hah!) comparing problem and solution with cause and effect text structures.  On yesterday’s homework many students confused the two, and we talked about how with cause and effect, we are given something that occurred, and the reasons for WHY it occurred.  With problem and solution, we are given something that has occurred/is a problem, and the solutions for it.  They are quite similar, and mixing up the two is common.

 

Tonight, students have to take a short passage that we classified together as cause and effect, and re-write it as a problem solution.  We used a graphic organizer to identify the cause and effect stated in the passage.  For their own paragraph, students should identify the problem, and then come up with 1-2 solutions to that problem.  They should write a paragraph, using the problem and solution text structure to express their ideas for solving the coral reef dilemma.

ProblemSolutionPromptNov18

 

In Science  most students should be done with their rough draft graphing of plant growth.  We will be comparing our growth charts, and then finding some information about rainfall and temperature to which we can compare our data.  I wonder what kind of connections we can make…

 

so, tl;dr

One page of classifying shapes

ShapeClassificationNov19

write a short paragraph using problem-solution talking about the dying coral reefs

ProblemSolutionPromptNov18

 

As always, read for 35 mins!

 

Have a good one,

-Mr. Potter

Tons of stuff today!

 

First, we went into the computer lab and worked on our Goldilocks stories.  These are coming along nicely, and we are starting to add some pictures so we can make a little storybook.

In order to do this, students are making cartoon pictures over at www.toondoo.com.  Today students made a login, and started playing around with the different options.  They are more than welcome to continue this at home, and they should have a good idea of how to create pictures and save them to their account to retrieve later.

 

Next we talked a good bit about different shapes.  We’ve been doing a lot of work with area, and now we’re going to connect that to defining different shapes.  Eventually we’ll talk about how basically everything can be broken down into triangles (even circles!) which is kind of how trig/calculus/all that other stuff works.

We also made a neat little shape out of straws.  Ask your student what shape it ALWAYS is, and what shape is it SOMETIMES.

Tonight we have a sheet full of shapes that they should define according to the notes they took in class.  Basically they should go from least-specific to most specific, naming everything that the shape is.  For example they shouldn’t just say “square”, they should say “polygon, quadrilateral, parallelogram, rectangle, square”.  If they need it, the little cheat sheet chart is here:

QuadrilateralHierarchy

And the homework is here:

ShapeClassificationNov17

 

In Language Arts we talked about text structures, and the reasons an author would pick a specific structure to tell their story.  We took some notes on this as well, which focused on ways to spot different text structures.  Tonight students have a collection of short passages to read.  They should identify the text structure of each passage, and then fill in a short graphic organizer detailing that structure for each passage.  The notes and the worksheet are here:

TextStructuresNotesNov17

TextStructuresNov17

 

And before you knew it, we were out of time!

 

so, tl;dr

One math worksheet, naming shapes (all the way from general to specific)

ShapeClassificationNov17

One LA worksheet, naming text structures

TextStructuresNov17

And as always, read for 35 minutes!

 

 

Also, this week is McTeacher night.  If you come to the McDonalds on Wednesday night from 5-7, you might see me taking your order!

 

Have a good one,

-Mr. Potter

Where did the week go?!  Having a holiday on Tuesday can totally throw you for a loop.

The students have been absolutely phenomenal this week.  This morning they were 100% on task during morning work, and only talked to help each other with the morning problem.  We’ve ended almost every day at negative five, and we have cut our calling out in half at least.  Just great stuff.

This morning we went over yesterday’s homework and it appears most students are getting it, and we’re clearing up our general division misconceptions or misunderstandings.  Tonight students have four new problems to do:

365.3 ÷ 0.4

251.5  ÷ 0.001

467.4 ÷ 1.5

111.111 ÷ 2

Some of these might require that they multiply both dividend and divisor by some factor of ten, and some they might be able to do without doing this.  It is up to them to figure out which works best.

 

In Language Arts we talked a good bit about bubble maps, and picking main ideas that we can support with details from the text.  Tonight students have a passage that we did a bubble map for together.  There are some questions also associated with this passage.

GaspingForAirBubbleMap

Students then got to take a Time for Kids of their choice.  They should pick one of the articles in the Time for Kids (one of the page long ones!) and create a bubble-map for it.

Next we did some work on their Goldilocks stories.  Many got a chance to talk with Mrs. Woodlief about them.  She was very impressed with the writers in our class!

 

Finally, we made a big long list of all of our data points for our plants.  Most students finished this, and can begin their graphing tomorrow.  This took a LOT longer than I thought it would!

 

so, tl;dr

4 division problems

365.3 ÷ 0.4

251.5  ÷ 0.001

467.4 ÷ 1.5

111.111 ÷ 2

One set of reading questions and one Time for Kids bubble map!

GaspingForAirBubbleMap

as always, read for 30 minutes

 

ALSO tomorrow we are having pajama and a movie day.  Students may come to school in their pajamas if they like, and we are going to watch a short little animated film during lunch/recess and maybe have some popcorn.

 

Have a good one!

 

-Mr. Potter

Hello all,

I’m very sorry that I missed updating on Monday.  I’ve been a tad under the weather lately, and I ended up sleeping instead of doing many other things.  apologies!

 

This morning we talked a LOT about some of the properties of division that can help us when performing difficult division problems.  In particular, we talked about how we can solve division problems where our divisor is a decimal.

Essentially, when we are dividing there are some neat properties that we can use to help us make difficult problems much simpler.

For example, all of these problems will give me the same answer:
6 ÷ 2 =
(6 x 3) ÷ (2 x 3) =
(6 x 10) ÷ (2 x 10) =
(6 x 7) ÷ (2 x 7) =
Each problem will give me an answer of three.
This means we can take some division problems that might look difficult, and make them easier by multiplying our dividend and our divisor by some number.

The students tonight have a set of problems to do utilizing these properties.  A bit more of an explanation and an example or on the worksheet as well.

Nov11MathHomework

In Language Arts we spent some time talking about our reasoning for our answers to last night’s homework, and the students got to debate their answers against each other to come up with an answer key.  It’s amazing how fervidly students will talk about their evidence when their grades are on the line!

Tonight, students have a very short passage to read and 4 simple questions to answer WITH REASONING!  These are on page 228 of their motivation reading books.

They also have a word ladder that they should have received on Monday while I was out.  This should be completed and turned in by tomorrow as well.

Nov11WordLadder

In science we went outside and took a final look at our poor, poor, dead or dying plants.  They did their best for us, and provided us with some delicious vegetables.  They will be missed.

We talked about taking all of our data and graphing the growth of our plants.  Students each picked a plant to graph, and they listed all of their data points, as well as their range for the y axis.  We will graph all of these tomorrow hopefully, and then see if we can find more data on the weather for the time period, and try to find correlations between growth and other things.

Finally, we watched some animations about the landing on Comet 67P this afternoon.  It is really neat stuff.  Maybe tomorrow we can find some good video or pictures of the actual landing itself.

 

ok, so tl;dr

One worksheet dividing by decimals

Nov11MathHomework

One page in Motivation reading – P 228

On word ladder

Nov11WordLadder

And as always, reading log!

 

Have a good one,

 

-Mr. Potter

 

Carnival!

 

Tonight is the Fall Carnival!  Join us from 6-7:30 to have some good food, and hang out.  There will be games to play all over the campus including in our classroom, and prizes to be won!

 

We finally had a semi-normal schedule today.

We talked more about finding the area of unusually shaped objects, and what is really going on with that whole division thing.

Tonight students have two problems to do, one division problem, and one area problem.  They should take their time with both of these and make sure they really understand how they came to their answers.  The quiz we take on this tomorrow will not ask them to find an answer.  It will ask them about the PROCESS of finding an answer.  They have already been warned!

Nov5MathHomework

 

In Language Arts we had a talk about our classroom library.  We have had some students leaving books out or not putting them back where they belong, so we revisited how our library is organized, and then shelved some new books I had gotten.  There were lots of good new ones, and hopefully the majority of students found something new and neat to read.

After that we did some rotations, where we talked about the digestive system in reading groups, did activities on Lexia, and worked on a short passage on the digestive system.

Tonight students should finish their work on the digestive system packet.  They should read the passage and annotate it.  On the back of the second page they should write what they believe to be the main idea, backed up by 3 details from the passage.  Finally there are some short questions to answer.

Where Does Food Go Passage_2_550

WhereDoesFoodGoQuestions

In science we finally got around to starting our mini-aquariums.  Students cut up coke bottles, put gravel in them, filled them with water, and then we put some purifying drops in them.  We’ll wait overnight for the water to normalize at room temperature and for the drops to do their work.  Tomorrow we’ll see if we can put some fishies and stuff in them.  It should be fun!

 

also please remember that tomorrow is an early release!

 

so, tl;dr

2 math problems

MathHomeworkNov6

passage, annotations, main idea and details, and questions answered!

Where Does Food Go Passage_2_550

WhereDoesFoodGoQuestions

 

 

come on out to Fall Carnival tonight!

 

-Mr. Potter

I forgot to do something yesterday, so I’m doing it now!

In The Mysterious Benedict Society book that we are currently reading, there is a riddle that we figured out as a class yesterday.  The students insisted I put it on the website to see if their parents could figure it out as well, so here it is:

Looking for something? Open me!
I’m sure that your something inside of me lies
Of course you can always find hope in me
though despair must come first; and later, surprise
what’s sought, though depends on the seeker –
one looks for bobbin; the other, for beaker;
Others, for nature; still others, for nurture –
the quarry will vary from searcher to searcher
and yet (I suspect this will strike you as strange),
my contents are set and will not ever change.
If you still cannot guess what I mean, here’s a clue
The answer – what I mean – is inside of me, too

So did you figure it out?  If not, ask your student!

 

Today we had a bit of a crazy backwards day, and we have VERY little homework because of it.

We did some quick review of division and the standard algorithm, but it seems most of our students are doing pretty well with this now.  We introduced the idea of a repeating, never ending problem, and how we can solve that, and represent our answers.

Next we talked about finding the area of non-standard objects.  We are pretty good with finding the area of simple things like rectangles and now triangles, but if we put a bunch of shapes together, how do we find the area of those?

We can break most objects down into triangles and rectangles, and find their respective areas, and then add them up.   It’s very similar in fact, to the way that we break down numbers into their parts, find their products, and then add up the partial products using the distributive property of multiplication over addition.  Neat how all of math is connected, isn’t it?

Tonight the students have two division problems, and two area problems to do.  They have copied down these problems and shapes on a piece of paper.  For the shapes they should find the area of each shape, by breaking them into smaller, manageable pieces.  They shouldn’t worry about the perimeter, as we haven’t talked about finding sides of a triangle yet.

Nov5MathHomework

 

We did some typing of our Goldilocks stories, and students decided how they are going to split them up into multiple pages, and what pictures they would like to put on each page.

 

After this, we had an officer form the Knightdale Police department come and talk to us about drug and alcohol abuse.  Our kids had some really great questions and made some very good connections to these things, and Officer Guthrie put on a really great presentation for the children.  Please if you get a chance ask your child about this today and what kind of impressions they got/things they learned.

 

Finally, we took some quick notes on the musculoskeletal and cardiovascular systems.  The students will have a LOT of vocabulary this quarter to learn, so looking back at their science journals from time to time would be a good idea.

 

And then before we knew it, we were out of time!

 

so, tl;dr

Just 2 division problems and 2 area problems to do tonight for homework:

Nov5MathHomework

And as always, read for 30 minutes and get reading log signed!

 

remember our fall carnival is tomorrow evening from 6-7:30.  Come out and have some shaved ice, a hot dog, get your face painted, and play some games!

 

Friday is early release!

 

Have a good one,

 

-Mr. Potter