Tomorrow is track out!

Please remember we are tracked out from October 1st through October 21st.  2nd quarter begins on Thursday, October 22nd.

Tomorrow is also pajama/pillow/blanket day.  Students may wear their pajamas, and bring a pillow or blanket tomorrow if they like!

 

We spent the majority of our morning finishing up our quick unit on the age of exploration.  We also took a quick quiz on the continents of the world.  If your student hasn’t sung the continents song for you yet, make sure you ask them about it 🙂

 

Tonight students have a final packet to do concerning exploiters (ahem) I mean explorers of the 15th/16th centuries.

AgeOfExploration

 

We then had some discussions dealing with whether we feel it was fair for the people from Europe to simply show up and take lands, resources, and riches from the native peoples of North and South America.  Most of us agreed this was not fair.  We then discussed whether at this point in time we can truly solve that injustice.  Can we just give everything back?  Where does that put us?  Who gets what?  Land?  Reparations?  Apologies?  It’s a good exercise in discovering that many things lack simple solutions, and even when we can see something as definitely wrong, righting the wrong can prove problematic.

 

We ended our day by taking our culminating animals and ecosystems test.  This was essentially the students’ last chance to prove to me that they understood some of the concepts we went over this quarter.

And before you knew it, it was time to go!  We’ll have to read about 30 pages tomorrow morning to finish up the Mysterious Benedict Society as we didn’t get a chance to finish it today.

 

so, tl;dr

Finish this packet about the Age of Exploration:

AgeOfExploration

 

And read!

 

Have a good one,

 

-Mr. Potter

 

T-minus 2 days until track-out!

Please remember that we are tracked out from October 1st through Wedesday, October 21st.  Second Quarter begins Thursday , October 22nd.

 

This morning we did a little exercise where we explored the writing process through an analogy of a sculptor sculpting clay.  Each student was given some play-doh, and we went through the process of creating something with clay just like we do with writing.  We talked about how with writing we need to study our medium (words) just as a sculptor studies the clay or other things they might work with.

We decided that a writer, just like a sculptor, needs a focus, or a purpose to their writing.  Our purpose lately has been to write an imagined narrative.  For our sculpting we decided upon creating a pencil holder.

We went through several iterations of ideas for our pencil holders (pre-writes, planning) before setting upon a design and then really beginning work on it (rough draft).  We then had others look at our sculpture (peer editing) before taking some of their ideas (and their clay) and adding them to our final product.  The entire purpose of this is to impress upon students that writing is a process that has definite steps.  Just like we went through steps when creating our pencil holders, we go through steps when we are creating stories, reports, or any type of writing.

 

Next we broke into smaller groups, and talked about some reading strategies and if we are really thinking about what we are reading.

We talked about some of our graphic organizers, and how they help us focus on what is really happening in a text, and whether we really understand it.  Even if Mr. Potter doesn’t say we have to, it might help us sometimes to use a graphic organizer to better help us understand something we have read!

Tonight students have a neat passage to read about breaking things.  They should create a main idea organizer at the end of the passage, and make sure that their main idea includes the who/what/where/when/why (if appropriate) and explains the central message of the passage.  They should then answer some questions about the passage WITH REASONING!

IBreakStuff

 

It was then time for math, and we looked again at how when we are adding fractions, we must ensure that they are cut into the same size pieces.  One way to do this is to see if you can take one fraction and cut it into the same size pieces as the other fraction.  We can do this by multiplying by a form of one.  For instance we could change the form of something like 2/3 into sixths by multiplying by 2/2.

 

Tonight students have 3 problems to do in this manner.  There are some examples to help them and then the problems are at the bottom:

AddingFractionsSep28

 

Finally we read some more of the Mysterious Benedict Society.  We are into the climax of the book now, and things are going totally banay-nay at the Learning Institute for the Very Enlightened!

 

so, tl;dr

Read this neat passage, create a main idea organizer, and then answer questions with reasoning:

IBreakStuff

 

Answer the bottom three fraction addition problems, doing them as shown in the examples.  Ensure you draw a pictorial representation of each fraction (the squares).  And show me the form of one you multiplied by:

AddingFractionsSep28

 

And as always, read! (get your agenda signed!)

Have a good one,

-Mr. Potter

Another day that just feels wayyy too short.

 

We went right into rotations today.  Students got a good amount of time to type their stories in Big Universe while we also did some small groups and MClass assessments.  Students also broke into pairs today and quizzed each other on the spelling and the meaning of their vocab words.  There just *might* be a spelling AND meaning test on this tomorrow……

 

Students also read about spiders today.  We talked about what a myth is, and some of the myths associated with spiders.  Tonight students should create a main idea organizer for this reading passage.  It should include the main idea, supported by three important details.

CallingAllSpiders

MainIdeaOrganizer

 

We then started talking about the water cycle and had to have a long discussion about how air is all around us, and there is water in the air.

This somehow led us on a tangent where we talked about how air resistance let’s us know that air is really there.  This ended with us watching a video to get a better idea about air resistance and the affect it has on things on the Earth.  Usually we watch this video during our physics unit, but hey, it’s interesting!

BowlingBallVsFeather

 

Finally we spent some time talking about our forms of one and finding equivalent fractions again.

Tonight students have some simple fraction addition problems.  They should do these just as the examples have been done.

First: Draw a physical representation of each fraction in the problem (the boxes below them)

Next: Draw those exact same representations to the right.  We do this to stress that we are NOT changing the values of the fractions in our problem.  We are simply changing their form to make them easier to work with.

Next:  Look at your first two fractions/representations.  Our problem is these are not all cut into the same size pieces.

Next: Look at the two fractions/representations and find which has the biggest pieces.  Compare that to the other fraction.  Can we see how many of the smaller fractions pieces would fit into one of the bigger pieces?  If so, that is the form of one we should use.  If two of the smaller fraction’s pieces would fit into the larger fraction’s pieces, then we should multiply the fraction with the larger pieces by 2/2, etc etc.

Ensure you write the form of one that you multiplied by!

Finally, cut the larger fraction into smaller pieces so that they are the same size as the other fraction.  If we multiplied by 2/2 we are cutting each piece into 2.  If we multiplied by 3/3 we are cutting each piece into 3.  Now our fractions are cut into the same size pieces, and we can add them easily.

EquivalentFractionsFormOfOne

 

 

so, tl;dr

Read about spiders, find the main idea and three important details:

CallingAllSpiders

MainIdeaOrganizer

Answer these problems by finding equivalent fractions, and be sure to show the form of one you multiplied by.  Do just as the examples have been done!

EquivalentFractionsFormOfOne

 

And as always, read!

 

Have a good one,

 

-Mr. Potter

 

 

PS: Students today chose to have a pajama/pillow/blanket/stuffed animal day next Wednesday as a reward for getting our crown.  Maybe we’ll make some pillow forts!

 

Also just in case you had forgotten, next Wednesday is the last day of the quarter, and track-out starts on Thursday!

 

Today we talked a lot about our stories and how we have improved as writers.  Our stories are more focused, have fewer mistakes, better structure, and are simply better written than our stories at the beginning of the year.

Students had some rotations where we worked in small groups, worked on vocabulary, and also worked on creating books out of our short stories.  Students will be making a book on Big Universe of their story.  Many got off to a great start today, and it looks to be good fun!

Students received a new list of vocabulary words today as well as a vocab sort.  Tonight they should write a sentence for each word.  They should look at the types of speech and use those as clues for how to use the word correctly in a sentence.

 

We then talked some more about food webs and how animals and plants co-exist and affect each other.  We really want students to understand that it’s all one big balancing act, and that all groups affect others either directly or indirectly.

 

In math today we discussed how when we have been finding equivalent fractions, we have actually been multiplying by a form of one.  When you multiply by one, you do not change the value of a number.  However, if you pick your form of one skillfully, you can change the form of a number without changing it’s value.  You can then find a form of your number that works better in your given problem.

 

For example, perhaps I am doing a problem like 1/2 + 1/4.  In their current forms, my numbers are a tad difficult to work with.  It would be much easier for me if both fractions were cut into the same size pieces – if they both had equal denominators.  I can’t just change the value of one of my numbers to make it easier on myself.  However, I *can* multiply my numbers by a form of one.  Again multiplying by one will not change their value.

So I do something like:

1/2 x (2/2) = 2/4

because 2/2 = 1

So by multiplying by 2/2 I have not changed the VALUE of 1/4, but I certainly have changed its form.

Now I have 2/4 + 1/4, which is a much easier problem to answer.

 

Tonight students should look at some equivalent fractions, and tell me the form of one that each was multiplied by.  As always, there is an example:

FormOfOne

 

 

so, tl;dr

Write a sentence for each of our vocab words.  They should make sense!

Find the form of one we multiplied by in order to find equivalent fractions:

FormOfOne

 

And read!

 

Have a good one,

-Mr. Potter

Today was another good day of writing.

 

I was VERY impressed with what I saw today.  We only had 4 students come in without their rough drafts.  This meant we were able to do a lot of peer editing this morning during writing time.  We focused on ensuring we have a solid paper, with a single problem and solution that is resolved inside of five events.

We came up with some reason’s together as a class as to why it is important to have someone else look at our work:

1.  It makes the writer a better writer by letting them see mistakes

2.  It makes the editor a better writer (they get practice finding mistakes and they can get good ideas from the things they read)

3.  We are bad at editing our own work (we often see what we wanted to write instead of what we actually wrote.  We also know exactly what should happen in our story and sometimes we miss that we didn’t actually tell our reader what happened).

 

Students did a very good job with this, and pairs had good discussions about what they did and did not understand from each other’s papers.

Tonight students should write a FINAL draft.  They should include changes and fixes from their peer edit.  We came up with these stipulations for what they are turning in tomorrow:

NO misspellings
NO missed indentions
NO run-on sentences
NO lack of explanations
SKIP LINES

 

Next we looked at food webs and food chains, and how changes in the environment can affect animal populations.  Animal population changes affect OTHER animal populations, and so on and so forth.  For instance if we had a food web like this:

If the deer population suddenly died off due to disease, we would expect a drop in the cougar population as they would lose a significant food source.  We then might see a rise in rabbits as they lose a number of predators.

 

Today I took our radish harvest and cooked them in the oven.  So far we have eaten raw radish, fried radish, and this was our next thing to try.  Unfortunately Mr. Potter may have *slightly* overcooked the radishes.  Some students said they were ok, but the massive majority so far have preferred the fried radishes, with some liking the raw radishes the best.  I am going to take our next harvest and pickle them over track out.  Should be fun!

Next we read a good bit of The Mysterious Benedict Society, and learned of Mr. Curtain’s evil plans!

 

Finally we looked at equivalent fractions some more.  We talked about how there are an infinite number of equivalent fractions for any given fraction.  When I am finding an equivalent fraction I am not changing the value of a fraction.  I am not adding anything, nor am I taking anything away.  I am simply changing the number of pieces that my fraction is cut into.  If I take a tray of brownies and cut them into two pieces, I have halves.  If I cut each of those in half, I have fourths.  I can continue doing this forever theoretically.  I have not changed how much I had in the way of brownies, I have simply changed what size pieces they are cut into.

 

 

so, tl;dr

Tonight students simply have writing homework again.  They should take their peer-edited rough draft, and fix any problems that were found.  They should also make sure their paper is divided into paragraphs, with proper indents.  I expect these things:

NO misspellings
NO missed indentions
NO run-on sentences
NO lack of explanations
SKIP LINES

 

and as always, read!

 

Have a good one,

-Mr. Potter

Today was a long day of writing, writing, and more writing!

 

We essentially went over the ENTIRE writing process we have been working on for short fictional narratives:

We develop our character:

CharOrganizer

We come up with some problems and possible solutions our character might face:

ProblemsAndSolution

We pick a problem and solution, and then make a ‘handful’ of a story.  We have had some real problems narrowing our writing down so we are focusing on five main events that tell a story for this round.

SequenceOfEvents

 

Students should have their character intro from last week.  If not, they need to start with three paragraphs describing their character:

1.  What the character looks like
2. Their background
3. Something unique or special about the character

After that, they should take their sequence of events and use it as a guide to help them write their actual work.  Each event should be a paragraph at minimum.

 

 

SO, all of these things are due tomorrow:

Char sheet CharOrganizer

Problem/solution sheet ProblemsAndSolution

Character introduction: 3 paragraphs

Sequence of events SequenceOfEvents

sequence of events turned into an actual story.

 

We also talked a great deal about how we are not simply *listing* what happened in our story.  We are drawing out each event and painting a picture in our reader’s mind of what happened in those moments.  Our story should not be a simple re-listing of our sequence of events.

After they are done writing, they should use this checklist to double check their work:

EditingChecklist

 

It is a decent amount of homework that they had some time to work on Friday and some time again today.  I expect it to take approximately 30 minutes to an hour to complete tonight.

 

Because of that, they should only work on this, and do their reading log tonight!

 

tl;dr

Rough draft of fictional narrative due tomorrow along with all graphic organizers and other little bits and bobs!

 

And read!

 

Have a good one,

 

-Mr. Potter

 

 

Tonight is APTT!!  5:30 to 6:30.  I’m looking forward to seeing all who can attend.

 

We took a look at our character introductions from yesterday and found that many students had not followed the directions correctly.  Many students simply launched into a story about their character.  Tonight they should ensure that their writing actually introduces their character.  We looked again at our examples, and came up with this formula for our writing tonight:

1st paragraph:  What our character looks like

2nd paragraph: Our character’s background or something significant about them

3rd paragraph: Something that is unique or special about your character

 

Tonight students should ensure that their character introduction is actually an introduction of their character.  If not, they should re-write it.

 

In science we *started* talking about food and digestion, and somehow ended up talking about supernovae.  I seriously have NO idea how that happened, but at least it was fun!

We read a short passage about how food is turned into energy, and how plants differ in that they create their own food.  Tonight students have some questions to answer.  As always, I would like to see reasoning!

FoodForEnergy

We also harvested some radishes!!!

 

We then cut one of our radishes up and shared it.  Some students had never had a raw radish before and were surprised by how spicy hot it was.  Tomorrow I’m going to fry up the other one and we can see how it tastes after that!

 

Before you knew it, it was actually time for us to just clean up and get ready to go, so students are getting off lite again tonight!

 

tl;dr

Re-write your character introduction if it does not include these things:

1st paragraph:  What our character looks like

2nd paragraph: Our character’s background or something significant about them

3rd paragraph: Something that is unique or special about your character

 

Read this passage and answer some questions with reasoning!

FoodForEnergy

 

and as always, read read read!

 

And come out to APTT!

 

See you tonight,

 

-Mr. Potter

 

 

Conference sign-ups are still up and if you haven’t yet already, please sign up for one!

PT sign-up

APTT tomorrow night! 5:30 – 6:30pm.  I would love for everyone to come and learn more about what we need to be working on as a class in order to move forward.  More info at the bottom!

 

Somehow we completely ran out of time today.  The kids have a very lite night of homework as we didn’t get to everything I would have liked to!

 

This morning we did a LOT of talking about characters, and how authors develop their characters.  We looked at How Andrew Clements developed his characters in Frindle vs. how Trenton Lee Stewart developed his characters in The Mysterious Benedict Society.  We focused on techniques that both authors used: describing what they look like, what they sound like, and some of their mannerisms.

We then filled out a little chart about a character of our own design:

CharOrganizer

Tonight students should refer to this sheet, and then write a short introduction of their character.  It should be about 3 paragraphs, and include important information from their chart.  They should do this in their writing journals.

 

In Science we weren’t attacked by bees like we were yesterday, but we were hard-pressed for time when measuring our plants.   We also did a little preview of how we are going to be putting all of our data into excel and then making charts and graphs showing how our plants have grown this quarter.

 

In Math today we started talking about adding fractions, and how in order to be able to add fractions, they must be cut into the same size pieces.  We did some problems together and with the help of some nice fraction models, were able to transform something like 1/8 + 2/4 into a more easy to do problem of 1/8 + 4/8.  We didn’t get to do a lot of this unfortunately, and so I pulled tonight’s math homework until we do some more practice together in the classroom.

This is the type of thing you can expect to be seeing a great deal of in the future:

EquivFractionsExample

 

 

so, tl;dr

Finish your character organizer, and write me a short piece introducing your character.  Include what they look like, and other important things.  Write this in your writing journal!

CharOrganizer

 

And read!

 

Have a good one,

 

-Mr. Potter

 

 

APTT is tomorrow!!

APPT and Parent-Teacher Conference info:

Academic Parent Teacher Teams are an opportunity for teachers and parents to work together on the same set of skills in order to progress students.  The meeting is the evening of the 17th, which is Tomorrow.  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!

 

PT conferences

APTT info and parent teacher info at the bottom!!  If you sign up for a conference you are awesome!

 

Today we had a great number of incidents where students were not following directions and were in general way off task.  Unfortunately this has resulted in us moving to separated desks at the moment.  We will be reviewing expectations and how we are required to act this week, and hopefully we can get back on track quickly.

 

We started off today with a talk about character development.  We looked at how characters were introduced in The Mysterious Benedict Society, and how the author paints a picture in our mind by describing their appearance, their actions, and perhaps even some of their background.  Undeveloped characters are difficult to picture in our minds, difficult to relate to, and in general difficult to understand as readers.

We broke into small groups with Ms. Hertling and myself, and then looked at how another author (Andrew Clements) introduces characters in some of his books.  We thought about what the author tells us about the characters (what they look like, how they act, where they live, etc) and looked for examples from Mr. Clements’ work.  We will use these examples later to help us with our own writing.  We filled out the majority of a graphic organizer about the short selection we read, but if there are any parts missing, students should fill it up tonight:

CharDevelopment

 

Students should also finish their Questions concerning the Eli reading from the other night.  YES each question needs reasoning!

eli_s_mission_660_passage_and_questions

 

We went outside at the PERFECT time today to measure our plants.  There were a ton of bees just sitting on our flowers pollinating them!!  This means we can expect to see vegetables growing soon.  The students were quite excited when they weren’t running screaming from the bees.

 

In math today we took some paper and made our own little fraction models.  Tonight students should use these in order to find some equivalent fractions:

EquivalentFractionsSep15

 

 

so, tl;dr

Tell me about character development:

CharDevelopment

Answer questions with reasoning:

eli_s_mission_660_passage_and_questions

Find equivalent fractions using your paper models:

EquivalentFractionsSep15

 

And read!

 

Have a good one,

 

-Mr. Potter

 

 

APPT and Parent-Teacher Conference info:

Academic Parent Teacher Teams are an opportunity for teachers and parents to work together on the same set of skills in order to progress students.  The meeting 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!

 

PT conferences

Again APTT and Parent Teacher Conference info at the bottom.  The annoying reminders will continue until morale (or sign-ups for P-T conferences at least) reaches 100%!!

 

I had almost forgotten how Monday feels….

 

IT FEELS FANTASTIC!

 

This morning we took another look at story maps, as we had some problems with them on our last assessment.  Students need some real practice identifying the IMPORTANT events in a text.  Often students can become fixated on a minor detail and assign it importance that it does not merit.  We should be asking ourselves if the event is important to the story or not.  If it were not included, would the story still make sense?  If the answer is yes, we could drop it and not affect the story, then it is likely not an important event.

Tonight students have a good bit of work to do.

First, they should read this passage:

AmericasBird

After reading the passage, they should draw and fill in a main idea organizer on the second page of the packet.  If you’ve forgotten, they look like this:

MainIdeaOrganizer

They should then answer the questions with the passage.  YES each answer must have reasoning in the form of “I know this because….”.  That means EVIDENCE from the passage, not just “I know this because it makes the most sense”.

This was all classwork last week, so there honestly should be *much* left, if at all.

 

Next, they should read this passage:

eli_s_mission_660_passage_and_questions

They *SHOULD NOT* answer the questions.

 

Instead, they should fill out a story elements organizer:

StoryElements

Then, they should tell me about Eli, using a character traits organizer:

Blank char sheet

 

We then took a quick Science Vocab quiz that we didn’t get a chance to do on Friday.  These look much more promising than the first vocabulary quiz we took, and I am looking forward to getting a better look at them.

 

We then spent some time in the computer lab doing some Lexia.  Students are coming along nicely with this program.  It presents them with tons of different activities to improve their reading, comprehension, and other essential literacy skills.

 

Finally we started talking about fractions today.  We said that a fraction describes a piece or pieces of something.  If I take an object and break it into four EQUAL parts, then each part is 1/4th.  If I take an object and break it into 10 EQUAL parts, each part is 1/10th.  Two parts would be 2/10ths, and so on.

We then took a look at equivalent fractions.  We made the important distinction that equal does not mean the same. It means same value.  1/4th is equal to 2/8ths, but they are not the same.  In the first case we have one piece of something that has been cut into four parts.  In the second case we have two pieces of something that has been cut into 8.  They both describe the same amount, but they are not the same.  This is important for students to understand when we are talking at length about equivalent fractions.

Tonight students have some equivalent fractions to work with.  They should finish the fraction models at the top, and then use those models to help them find the equivalent fractions at the bottom.

EquivalentFractionsSep14

 

so, tl;dr

Read passage, answer questions with reasoning, make a main idea organizer for the passage:

AmericasBird

Read passage, don’t answer questions,  fill out story elements organizer, and character organizer for Eli:

eli_s_mission_660_passage_and_questions

Finish fraction models, fill in equivalent fractions:

EquivalentFractionsSep14

 

And as always, read!

 

Have a good one,

 

-Mr. Potter

 

 

 

APPT and Parent-Teacher Conference info:

Academic Parent Teacher Teams are an opportunity for teachers and parents to work together on the same set of skills in order to progress students.  The meeting 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!

P-T Conference Sign-Up