And we’re done!!!
No more Case 21, hooray!
tomorrow we just have our end of quarter celebration.
We are going to eat a ton of junk food, drink a ton of juice, and then go home at 12:30. It should be a GREAT day!
tonight, I would just like students to do their reading logs, and then also a graphing mystery picture hand-out. Should be very quick and easy.
See everyone tomorrow!
-Mr. Potter
Note: There is some magnet school information down near the bottom of the post
Uh oh! We had a cats vs. dogs discussion during dismissal that ended with:
“WHAT DO YOU MEAN KITTENS ARE VICIOUS?! YOU’RE VICIOUS!!!”
So cats vs. dogs will be the first on our list of things we will no longer talk about.
Case 21 has been a real struggle this week. Many of our students aren’t really checking their answers or putting in the amount of time that they are capable of. We had a talk about this today, and how many of their mistakes on the math assessment were easily avoidable if we were checking our answers or using our test taking strategies.
I’m not sure if this is because students are just worn out, or something else.
Hopefully tomorrow will be better!
please remember tomorrow is Science Case 21! And Friday is our end of quarter celebration and early release!
Today students got some hand-outs, including the school/parent compact. I am sending these home again, even though many parents saw them on curriculum night. If parents could please simply sign the sheet of paper that says you saw this and send it with your student tomorrow, I would really appreciate it.
Students also got a sheet with information about magnet school applications. I highly suggest taking a look at your middle school options, and seeing if there might be a school that is a better fit for your student and your family. There are many options, including many that have neighborhood busing.
Here is the process in a nutshell:
You apply, giving your 1st, 2nd, and 3rd choices
A bit of a lottery occurs, and students are given their choices, or put on a waiting list.
The application period is from January 26th to February 5th
The application/magnet website is here, but it is not the most simple of sites to navigate, so I am including some important links below.
To find your base school, go here
You can also click on maps there to look at school divisions and get transportation information
The different magnet middle schools are here
On that page, click on each one for information
If you are interested in a magnet school, the application is here (You won’t be able to access this until the application window opens on January 26th)
Again, the application dates are January 26th to February 5th. I strongly encourage you to take a look and apply if a school looks like it would be a good fit.
Tonight students should make sure they get those papers to you, and get the compact sheet signed. That, and reading for 35 minutes is their only homework.
Easy peezy.
If you have any questions about anything, including our celebration, or about general magnet application stuff, please feel free to contact me by phone, or at my school e-mail.
Have a good one!
-Mr. Potter
The homework is…
there is no homework!
seriously, not even reading log.
Today the kids worked their tails off taking their Language Arts Case 21. I was not exactly thrilled with the results, but the majority of students worked until past 2pm. That’s about four hours on a test. We then had some silent reading time, which I will count as their reading for today.
Really I would just like students to go home and relax before tomorrow’s test. Get a good night’s rest, and make sure they eat breakfast!
so nada, zip, zilch for tomorrow. No homework, no reading log, just sleep well and eat.
The rest of the week:
Wed: Math Case 21
Thurs: Science Case 21 (and also a special program by the Knightdale High School band)
Fri: End Of Quarter celebration and early release
Have a good one!
-Mr. Potter
Tomorrow is Case 21!!!
This week:
Tuesday: Language Arts case 21
Wednesday: Math Case 21
Thursday: Science Case 21
Friday: End of Quarter Celebration and early release
Today was our last real day to review. We spent the entire morning talking about much of the math we had done this quarter, and the afternoon talking about Language Arts.
In math, students have some order of operations review to do on page 9 of their motivation math books.
Students also have some questions to answer on page 241-242 of their motivation reading books. This selection had some poetry in it, and we spent a good deal of time deciphering the flowery language in the poetry, so answering the questions shouldn’t be too difficult.
Students received quite a few handouts today, including a permission/food form for Friday’s celebration. Please be sure you see this and sign it, so your child can join us. If you have any questions or concerns please feel free to call/e-mail me.
SO, a short and sweet day:
one review page in motivation math: 9
two pages in motivation reading: 241-242
as always, read!
Get a good night’s rest and eat breakfast. Tomorrow is Case 21!!!
-Mr. Potter
So today I went with absolutely awesome Animaniacs videos during dismissal, and the kids were much more receptive.
So our fabulous review week continues, today talking about some algebraic operations, exponents, and order of operations.
Tonight students should do an order of operations/algebra review sheet for math:
We have been combining language arts and science quite a bit this week, and today was no exception. We talked about our passages on the lungs and the heart, and I was very happy with how well the students are doing on these.
Tonight students have another science passage on inherited and learned traits/behaviors.
We also got a chance to talk a good bit about the nervous system, and how the brain and the parts of your body communicate with each other. We also talked about the cell cycle, and how cells are constantly dividing and dying.
Tomorrow will be a big day of review, and just a few assessments.
Just in case you forgot it, here is next week’s schedule:
Monday: Review
Tuesday Case 21 Language Arts
Wednesday Case 21 Math
Thursday Case 21 Science
Friday end of quarter celebration and early release
a very short and sweet day!
tl;dr
One math review sheet
One science passage on inherited vs. learned traits
as always, read!
Have a good one,
-Mr. Potter
So I put this on during dismissal and all the kids were like “YOU WATCH WWE?!?!”
I once tried to put on some classical, and Will said “next time Mr. Potter, can we listen to some good music?”
So during centers this week we are working individually on some challenging problems, and then as a group going over them and finding our mistakes. I think it’s really helping quite a few students learn to self-assess. When students are able to get immediate feedback like this, it makes it much easier for them to see where their gaps in understanding or mistakes are.
Again tonight students have some geometry review. We talked about ordered pairs and graphing some today, and students also have a mystery picture to draw using ordered pairs.
Our Language Arts lesson got quickly derailed as we were talking about languages in the Mysterious Benedict society. We took a break to review how North and South America were colonized (invaded) by different countries from Europe. Various places have their current languages today based on what country colonized them, and we had to take some time exploring where those countries were.
tonight students again have a combined LA/science review in the form of a passage about the lungs:
Before I knew it we were out of time, as the vast majority of students then went to their end of quarter Frozen celebration, where they got to do a bunch of fun things like make a lava lamp and make little snowmen!
so, tl;dr
geometry review, and an ordered pair mystery picture exercise:
Review passage on the lungs:
as always, read!
Have a good one,
-Mr. Potter
One week until Case 21!
Our schedule for next week goes:
Monday: review day
Tuesday Case 21 Language Arts
Wednesday Case 21 Math
Thursday Case 21 Science
Fri: End of quarter celebration and early release!
So we spent a good bit of time finishing our powers of ten notes this morning and talking about that for a good time. This will be the last really *new* thing we talk about this quarter, but it is very important, so we’ll continue hitting on it regularly.
We are also doing a good bit of review, so tonight students have a short review quiz on geometry. It might seem long, but they are all multiple choice questions, with very little actual work to be done.
In Language Arts we continue to work on finding evidence inside texts, and being able to reason our answers. Today we had some great discussions where the students tried to explain their reasoning and convince me of their answers.
Tonight students have a short passage about the lungs and some questions to answer. As always, I expect to see reasoning!
In Science we talked about some body systems, and how they are connected. We also watched a Bill Nye video on the brain, which included a whole bunch of really neat optical illusions. Ask your student about them!
so, tl;dr
one review packet on geometry
one passage on the lungs (with reasoning!)
as always, read!
Have a good one,
-Mr. Potter
This morning we got extra PE from Mr. McClaney!
Last week we had a lockdown drill during our normal PE time, and the students missed out on the majority of their class. To make up for this, Mr. McClaney donated some of his time this morning to ensure the students got their fair share of one of their favorite specials.
Today we extended all of our talk of exponents to powers of ten, and the neat patterns we see when working with powers of ten. We took some notes, but the understandings here were very shaky, and we’ll be talking about them a LOT this week.
The basic ‘shortcut’ most of us were taught is that if you are multiplying by for example 10^3rd power, you move the decimal point three places to the right, and if you were multiplying by 10^-3, you would move the decimal point three places to the left, etc etc. It’s great for the students to know this, but I want them to really understand why this works, as opposed to simply remembering a shortcut.
The basics of this are if you are multiplying something like 12.47 x 10^2, then really you are multiplying each part of 12.47 by 100.
12.47 is made up of 1 ten, 2 ones, 4 tenths, and 7 hundredths
if we multiply 10 by 100, we get 1000
if we multiply 2 by 100, we get 200
.4 by 100 is 40,
.07 by 100 will give us 7
Thus we end up increasing each part of our original number by a factor of 100, which is really increasing it’s place value by two places.
The notes we started today:
Tonight students have a few problems to do working with powers of ten. Depending upon how this looks tonight it might be pretty much the same homework tomorrow, as I think we’ll keep working on this stuff until we really have a deep understanding of how and why this works.
In Language Arts we started talking about synonyms and antonyms. This is fairly straight-forward stuff, and it was nice to see some nodding heads after this morning!
Tonight students have a simple antonym worksheet to do, which I unfortunately seem to have lost the master for, and can not upload here at the moment. I apologize for this!
In Science we did some reviewing of the body systems we have talked about, and the students tonight have a little language arts reading selection dealing with bones:
Quite a short day!
so tl;dr
one set of powers of ten problems
One antonym worksheet
bones bones bones!
as always, read!
have a good one,
-Mr. Potter
Today was a few quizzes, and a lot of fun…
Have a good weekend!
Remember to read!
-Mr. Potter
Tomorrow is blanket fort and gum day!!
For our 1st jewel celebration, tomorrow students may bring a blanket and gum. We will make blanket forts with our blankets and desks, and then have DEAR time with them, while chewing our gum. It should be pretty fun!
So yes, they may bring a small comforter or blanket, and yes, they may bring gum!
Today, we had a really good talk about exponents. We focused on the idea that exponentiation is raising a base to a given power by multiplying the base by itself an exponent number of times.
We also talked about the pattern we see in exponents, and used that to extrapolate something raised to the power zero, and to the power of negative 1.
Exponent notes: ExponentNotes
Tomorrow we will take a quick quiz on order of operations and I hope we can move on, as the students picked this stuff up quickly.
Tonight students have another sheet of equations to evaluate. It also has two of the ’24’ problems at the bottom. I love math puzzles!
In Language Arts we talked a LOT about author’s purpose, and why they would choose a particular text structure for their work. Tonight, students have another collection of short paragraphs to analyze. They should give me this information about each paragraph:
1. Type of text structure used
2. Graphic organizer presenting the information
3. I believe the author used …. because…..
For number 3, I don’t want them to justify their answer for number 1. I want them to explain why an author would pick that particular structure. Why would they choose problem and solution? Why would they choose sequence? What are they writing about that makes that text structure work best?
As an example, here is the first one (that we did together)
1. Sequence
2. (graphic organizer here)
3. I believe the author used sequence because they are teaching something, and the best way to do that is to tell someone how to do something step by step.
In Science we talked again about DNA and watched a quick animation that explained how DNA is replicated into RNA, and then used by ribosomes to create new proteins.
We also had a discussion about learned versus inherited traits, and it seems that the students already have a good grasp of the idea that you inherited your eyes and your chin from your parents, but not the fact that you may or may not like baseball.
so, tl;dr
One last set of order of operations problems:
One set of text structures, answering the question “Why would the author use THIS text structure?”
also read!
P.S. I apologize if my request yesterday that you allow your student to do their text structures homework independently was frustrating. I understand completely! But I appreciate your cooperation, and I’ll try not to do it again!
Have a good one,
-Mr. Potter