Long time, no post!

State of the classroom:

So we have spent our last real week of school finishing up some projects, and taking a bunch of last minute, last chance assessments.

We’ve been working a lot with our economics unit and students have been researching possible careers, and the COSTS associated with the education needed for those careers.  It has been very eye opening for many of them.  Ask your student what career they are interested in, and how much they can expect to pay for college…….

 

Tomorrow is our last real day of school!  We will finish up some projects, and then we have graduation practice in the afternoon.

 

A reminder:

Graduation is 9am on Monday.  Students should come to school as normal (bus, walk, carpool, etc).  We will then move as a class to the gym.  Parents/family should be in the gym by 8:45 as we will be walking in promptly at 9.  You can park in the lot next to the gym in the morning.

 

If you have any questions or anything you would like to discuss, please call or e-mail me.

 

Have a good one!

-Mr. Potter

So we are spending a good amount of time in math fixing some things, and a good amount of time talking about things that we will see next year in sixth grade.

Specifically we have been talking about exponents and radicals.  Today/yesterday students took a good chunk of notes on radicals:

RadicalsNotes

 

We talked about how saying something like the square root of 4 , or √4, is equivalent to raising 4 to the 1/2 power.  Tonight students have a number of problems to do where they equate roots with raising numbers to fractional powers (radicals) and finding a number of square and cube roots themselves.

RadicalsHomework

 

We spent a LOT of time today talking about how competition can be great for customers, and not so great for businesses.  So does that mean that competition is good? or bad?  We had some good discussion about how competition can protect customers and work for them, as businesses are forced to either produce better or cheaper products.  At absolute worst, competition provides customers with choices and options.

Tonight students have a new chapter of Wally to read:

WalnutsChap8

 

They were also supposed to have some questions to answer, but honestly I forgot to hand them out.  So lucky them!

 

That means tonight is very very quick:

Do some math problems: RadicalsHomework

Read some Wally: WalnutsChap8

And get your reading log signed!

 

 

Tomorrow we have our scepter celebration.  It’s a surprise, but it will involve eating and playing games.  It should be fun!

 

Have a good one,

 

-Mr. Potter

Did I mention we are not done yet?

 

So we have started talking about exponents and radicals!  A constant problem with students is they forget that 3^2 is 3 * 3, and instead mistakenly believe it means 3 * 2.  So today we chanted over and over “3 squared is not 3 times two”.

 

Tonight for homework students have a set of exponent problems to solve.

Exponent Homework

We are also trying to pinpoint some weaknesses we have individually in mathematics and get those sorted before we leave for middle school.  For this, some students also have some subtraction homework to do tonight.  Those that have this homework know who they are.

Subtraction Homework

In Language Arts we are quickly reviewing a lot of strategies and things we talked about during the year.  Our reasoning is getting MUCH better and today we took a quick assessment with a non-fiction text where we had to explain our answer choices.  Overall I was very happy with the student’s performance on this.

 

We then spent a good amount of time talking about economy, and Wally and the Walnuts.  Many students are confusing the idea of money (a medium of exchange) with what the money represents (standard of value).

In our story, everyone trades in Walnuts.  That is the standard of value.  It’s something that everyone uses as a standard to determine value for barter and trade.  In the U.S. it was gold up until a little while ago.  Hence, the ‘gold standard’.  In our story we have a ‘walnut standard’.

Now we don’t carry bricks of gold around with us, and they got tired of carrying around buckets of walnuts in the story.  So they develop a medium of exchange to represent the buckets of walnuts.  They use little pieces of wood with ‘W’s on them.  In our country we use little pieces of paper and metal with pictures of dead presidents on them.

 

Tonight students got a new chapter of Wally and the Walnuts to read, along with two questions to answer:

1.  What is competition?

2.  Is competition good or bad?  Give at least two reasons for your answer.

 

WalnutsChap7

 

so, tl;dr

exponents!

Exponent Homework

subtraction if you need to!

Subtraction Homework

Read W&TW next chapter:

WalnutsChap7

Answer two questions about it:

1.  What is competition?

2.  Is competition good or bad?  Give at least two reasons for your answer.

 

And as always, read!

 

-Mr. Potter

 

 

Two down, one to go!

And we are keeping this short and sweet around this time:

Science EOG is next Tuesday, the 12th!

 

As such, we spent today doing a LOT of review.  We looked at some old EOGs and went over our review packets.  This weekend students have a released science eog to finish:

g5scipp

 

And as always, read!

 

Have a good one,

 

-Mr. Potter

Just study!

 

And read!!

 

Tonight students took home their math journals, as well as their manilla folders full of review sheets.  They should be looking specifically at the problems they have missed, and concepts they are not quite 100% on.  Tomorrow is the big math day!

 

Tomorrow: Math EOG

Thursday: Language Arts EOG

 

Next Tuesday: Science EOG

 

Get a good night’s rest, and eat breakfast!!

 

-Mr. Potter

SO, in case you are still wondering:

 

Wednesday, June 10 (THIS WEDNESDAY): Math EOG

Thursday, June 11 (THIS THURSDAY): Language Arts EOG

 

Tuesday, June 16 (NEXT TUESDAY): Science EOG

 

This and next week are fairly important weeks and the students are going to be bogged down in a LOT of work inside the classroom.  As such, homework this week will be a tad on the lighter side.  However students should still be looking at their notes, review packets, and the other things we have worked on so far.

Over the weekend, students finished this math packet:

5th grade math eog released

Today we went over the answers.

 

Their homework is to find one that they missed, and figure out why and how they missed it.  Also to figure out how to do this problem correctly.  Tomorrow they need to come up to me and explain exactly what they did wrong, and exactly how to fix it.

 

We also started this packet today:

g5elapp

Tonight students have the very last selection to read and the questions to answer for that passage.

 

After that, they just have to do their reading log!

 

so, tl;dr

Tell me how to correctly do a problem you missed (exactly):

5th grade math eog released

Do the last selection and answer those questions:

g5elapp

 

READING LOG!!

 

Sleep well, and get some breakfast in you!

 

-Mr. Potter

Let’s keep them short and sweet this week:

 

Self assigned homework (motivation math and reading):

Self Assigned Homework

 

Read chapter 5 and 6 in Wally and the Walnuts:

WalnutsChap5&6

 

We also got a force and motion review packet, and students should read it and do questions 1-12 in the packet.  I’m sorry, but I don’t have the review packet in digital form.  That’s something I really need to fix.

 

AND READ!!

 

Have a good one,

 

-Mr. Potter

Same old, same old!

 

Students are getting very adept at recognizing their own gaps.  I am VERY impressed.  They have assigned themselves some more homework tonight, and here it is:

Self Assigned Homework

 

We did a TON of centers today,  and small groups, and small reading groups, and all sorts of little individual and group type stuff.  I am very lucky to have a group of students that I can trust to do work on their own.  It let’s us get a lot done, and allows us to focus more on the things we still need to practice.

 

Unfortunately we didn’t have much time left by the end of the day to read more of Wally and the Walnuts.  Therefore students should read the next two chapters tonight as homework.

WalnutsChap3&4

 

so, very short and sweet today:

Do the homework you assigned yourself: Self Assigned Homework

Read CH2 and 3 in Wally and the Walnuts: WalnutsChap3&4

 

And as always, read read read

 

Have a good one,

 

-Mr. Potter

This ‘assign your own homework’ is going very well!  Most students are assigning themselves things that they really need to work on.

Today we did lots of centers and small groups that students picked themselves based on what they wanted to work on.  I’m very happy with how well the students are handling the freedom and the responsibility of choosing their own focus and what they need to do/study.  Let’s hope it stays this way!

 

So students tonight should do the next two pages in their motivation math, and they picked another motivation reading passage to do as well.  Their own assignments are here:

Self Assigned Homework

 

We did some more work in the computer lab with our poetry, and went over our entire ecosystems review packet.  Students will soon be getting a review packet for forces and motion.  They should also be looking at these review materials each night as they prepare for their EOGs.

 

speaking of which, if you didn’t see it yesterday:

Wed, June 10: Math EOG

Thurs, June 11: Language Arts EOG

Tues, June 16: Science EOG

 Mon, June 29: 5th grade graduation ceremony