My apologies about not having an update yesterday.  I was feeling pretty awful, and we ended up having a substitute.  The substitute said that the students were fantastic, however, so that was good to come back to 🙂

 

This morning we looked again at some primary sources, and real things native americans and colonists living in the 1600’s said.  Specifically we looked at these quotes:

Colonies degenerate assuredly when the colonists imitate and embrace the habits, customs, and practices of the natives. There is no better way to remedy this evil than to do away with and destroy completely the habits and practices of the natives.

-Virginia Colony Promoter William Herbert, 1610

and this one..

Since that you are heere strangers and come into our Countrey, you should rather confine yourselves to the Customes of our Countrey, than impose yours upon us.

– A wicomesse Indian to the Governor of Maryland, 1633

We talked about these quotes and wrote them in our own words.  These quotes help explain that there was a definite culture clash going on between the European settlers, and the Native Americans.  Tonight students should look at these quotes (and their interpretation in their own words) and compare and contrast the attitudes of these two individuals.

PrimarySources

Compare and Contrast

 

Next we got to go outside and look at our plants!  We harvested a cucumber, another radish, and a teensy weensy carrot.  Tomorrow we’ll cut them up and have  a little snack.

 

Yesterday the students had some work to do regarding the musculoskeletal system, and today we finished up talking about it.  We learned that bones are actually hollow, and not solid as we might think.  Inside there is spongy bone, as well as marrow.   We also talked about how bones and muscles work together to move you, protect you, and to give you form.  Tonight students have a quick little worksheet to do regarding the jobs of muscles and the makeup of bones:

Muscles&Bones

 

Finally we talked a great deal about decimals and number line representations.  We looked at how we can break up numbers on a number line into smaller parts and that these parts would be fractions of a whole.  We can also describe these fractions in base 10, or decimal, notation.  Tonight students have some number lines to fill in.  As always, there are examples!

DecimalNumberLineExamples

DecimalNumberLines

 

so, tl;dr

Look at the first and third quote, then compare and contrast these two individual’s viewpoints:

PrimarySources

Compare and Contrast

 

Tell me about muscles and bones

Muscles&Bones

 

Fill in some number lines

DecimalNumberLineExamples

DecimalNumberLines

 

and as always, please please please read!

 

Have a good one,

 

-Mr. Potter

Today we were historians!

 

We talked this morning a good bit about how historians figure things out about history.  Historians look at books, newspapers, letters, and other artifacts from a time period, and use these PRIMARY SOURCES to piece together a story of what was happening during that time.

This quarter we will be doing some actual historian work.  Today we got a few pages of primary-like sources.  We talked about how we need to be detectives, and use the sources to help us figure out the story.

Tonight students should use a primary source to answer these questions:

Who: (who is this about?  Who is talking?  Who are they talking to?)

What: (What is going on?)

Where: (Where is this occurring?)

When: (When is this happening?)

Why: (Why is this happening?)

The specific passage they should look at within this paper is “Your mouth is of sugar but your heart is gall” on page 10.

indianscolonists

We also spent a LOT of time today talking about base 10, multiplying by 10, and dividing by 10.  We then looked a lot at decimals, and how decimals are simply another way to represent specific fractions.  We explored how we can represent something like 1/4 as a decimal – specifically, 0.25.  We thought a lot about money in order to explain this.  Tonight students have some decimals to represent as fractions and as pictorial representations.  There is a page of examples as always!

DecimalHwk2

Also ask your student about breaking up a dollar among 3 people.  What happens when you do that?  What happened when Mr. Potter tried to do that in class??  Did he go crazy?  Did he grab the sides of his head and keep exclaiming “I STILL HAVE ONE LEFT!!!!”?????

Tomorrow we have Lt. Guthrie coming into our room to talk about drugs and bullying.   Mrs. Carter, our class counselor has arranged this experience for us.  Last year Lt. Guthrie came and gave this talk to my students, and it went very well.  I’m sure it will be great again tomorrow.

 

so, tl;dr

summarize “Your mouth is of sugar but your heart is gall” on page 10.  Answer who, what, where, when, why.  Be sure you can actually explain this short selection to someone.  This will definitely require MULTIPLE readings and probably a few questions to mom/dad/uncle/grandma/someone. (My apologies to families!)

indianscolonists

Write the fractional representation for these decimal numbers, and also fill in the decimal square.

DecimalHwk2

 

And read!

 

Have a good one,

 

-Mr. Potter

 

What a great Monday!

Students got their report cards and information regarding the first field trip today – make sure you ask your student for all of it!

We spent a good deal of our morning talking about the math we have been doing up to this point.  We talked about how it is important to understand how operations work, so when we see something like:

A + B = 10

We also know that B + A = 10.

Or if we know that A x B = 16

We also know that A x B x 10 = 160

This is all very important because in the real world, we often don’t have all the information.  Sometimes we have to go on what we know, and in order to do that, we need to understand that addition is commutative, or that multiplication is associative.  The kids are slowly getting it I believe, and it is fantastic.

 

We also started talking about decimal notation today, and how really it’s just another way to represent fractions that have denominators that are powers of ten.  We went over how to name decimals, and how we can intuit the value of decimals based on the properties of the base 10 system.  Essentially we are increasing by a factor of ten as we move to the left of the decimal point, so it would make sense that we are decreasing in value by a factor of ten as we move to the right.

 

Tonight students have some simple decimal naming worksheets to do.  On the back, they should name the model both as a fraction, and as a decimal.

DecimalIdentification

 

Our day wasn’t all math though!  We also introduced a new vocab list, and did some dirty science review.

 

Tonight students should write one sentence per vocab word and ensure they are using it correctly by checking the part of speech.

JectWordList

They also have a quick Water Cycle review sheet to read and some questions to answer:

WaterCycleReview

Finally, we had a lot of fun today out at recess playing with our big red frisbees, and followed that up with our radishes that I picked over the weekend.  If I do say so myself, they were delicious!

 

so, tl;dr

READ!

Name some decimals (and fractions too!)

DecimalIdentification

Write a sentence for each vocab word

JectWordList

Review some water cycle

WaterCycleReview

And please remember to bring back your report card signed tomorrow, as well as your field trip forms!

 

Have a good one,

 

-Mr. Potter

WELCOME BACK!!!

Today was an absolutely fantastic first day back.  All of the children were bleary, disoriented, and had no idea what was going on.  I wish every day could be like this 😉

This morning we shared our track-out experiences in groups, and then each group put together their own experiences to write a fictional story about the best day of track out, and the worst day of track out.  We had some really awesome days, and some very depressing days as well!  Ask your student about their group’s story!

This week we will be doing a very quick review of the first quarter’s topics.  We spent a lot of the morning talking about explorers, and their interactions with native populations.  We did a See, Think, Wonder with the following picture:

The kids had some really great thoughts and questions about this picture.  Afterwards we talked about Cortez and Montezuma, and their not exactly mutually beneficial relationship.

 

We also talked a bit about the writing process, and how we will be using our process as we continue writing throughout the year.

 

Tonight students have a short passage to read about Jamestown, and some questions to answer.  They should ONLY answer questions 1-5, and they should of course have reasoning!

Jamestown

We then went outside and saw that our plants are growing vegetables all over the place.  We had some GIGANTIC radishes, as well as a tiny carrot we harvested, and also a cucumber.  We have some tomatoes to look forward to as long as it doesn’t get *too* cold in the upcoming week, and our corn was starting to stalk as well.  Keep your fingers crossed for us.

 

At the end of the day we talked a good deal about the different mathematical operations of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division.  We took some notes on multiplication and division.  At this point our goal is to understand what kind of problems each operation is used to solve.  In order to do this we need to understand what each operation is used for:

Addition – combining

subtraction – finding difference

multiplication – repeated equal groups (repeated addition)

division – how many ___ are in ___ (repeated subtraction)

This is by no means an exhaustive list, but it is where we are starting.

 

Tonight students have a page of word problems to examine.  They should NOT solve these problems.  Instead, they should fill out some blanks about HOW to solve the problem and how they know this.  We did 3 examples together, and the students should do the next four problems, which means they are only doing the first 7 of the 10 word problems.   As always examples are attached:

DeterminingOperations

 

 

 

so, tl;dr

welcome back!

Answer 1-5 about Jamestown (WITH REASONING!)

Jamestown

Do problems 1-7 in the template given (1-3 we did together and are provided as examples)

DeterminingOperations

And as always, read!

 

Have a good one,

-Mr. Potter

 

 

 

 

P.S. Our first field trip of the year will be on December 15th to the Museum of Natural Sciences.  More information will go home next Monday, as will report cards.