Quick reminder: Today is the deadline for the magnet application.  Please take a look at the sidebar to the left and read the track out and magnet info post if you haven’t already.

 

That’s right, homework on a Friday!

 

Well, kinda….

 

We do have school tomorrow, Saturday the 30th of January.  It will be a half-day makeup for Monday’s snow day.

The buses will pick up students at the normal time, and school will start as normal with arrival from 8:00 – 8:30 and class beginning at 8:30.

There is no breakfast, lunch, or recess.

Class will dismiss at 12:00.

Students should feel free to bring a big snack if they would like.

 

 

 

Today we took our regular battery of Friday quizzes.  Again I was just so impressed with how hard the students are working.  Everyone seems to still be rested from our long track out, and I hope that things continue in this manner.

 

We also started a final copy of our metaphor poem.  We are writing these on nice white paper and including an illustration.  Tonight students should finish that final copy to have ready to turn in tomorrow.  If students are not in school tomorrow, then I would like it turned in first thing Monday morning.

 

Besides that, students should also read and get tonight filled out in their reading logs.

 

so not much, simply finish metaphor poem, and read!

 

Hopefully see you tomorrow,

 

-Mr. Potter

Another full day!

I must say I am SUPER impressed with how well the students are working in class.  Our first few days back have been quite productive.

 

This morning we talked about hyperbole and personification and came up with some of our own statements using them.  Tonight students have some straightforward worksheets to complete identifying these two types of figurative language.

Hyperbole_Personification

We also talked about metaphors and similes again.  Tonight students should write a simile/metaphor poem.  They should pick something from their life (an object, something they own, friend, or family member) and then compare it to something else to start the poem.  The rest of the poem then explains why they made this comparison.

Here are some examples:

 

My mother is like an alarm clock.

She wakes me up every morning.

But she doesn’t go, Beep! Beep! Beep!・

Instead, she yanks open my bedroom door and yells,

Sleepyhead, get out of bed!

 

My dog is a cheetah.

When someone leaves the door open,

she springs out the door and runs down the street so fast

no one can catch her without a helicopter and a tranquilizer gun.

 

We also started reading “Love that Dog” in small groups , which is an absolutely fantastic story written like a poem.  Ask your student about it!

 

In Math we reviewed addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division with simple decimals.  Tonight students have another two sets of decimals that they should add, subtract, multiply, and divide:

.45        .15 (add, subtract, multiply, and divide these!)

2.4        .6 (add, subtract, multiply, and divide these too!)

 

We also have a bunch of quizzes tomorrow, as it is Friday!

They will cover:

What causes weather?

Metaphors, Similes, Hyperbole, Personification

adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing simple decimals

 

so, tl;dr

Identify the personification and hyperbole

Hyperbole_Personification

Write a metaphor poem

Add, subtract, multiply, and divide these two sets:

.45       .15

2.4         .6

 

And as always, read!

 

Have a good one,

 

-Mr. Potter

 

 

 

A full day of school!  Hoorays!!

As a reminder, we do have school this Saturday, January 30th.  It is a half day makeup for Monday.  The buses will run at the normal time to pick up students.  School will run until 12:00.  There will be no lunch or recess, it is simply instructional time.

 

So we started off this morning talking more about figurative language.  Specifically we talked about similes and metaphors.  We looked at a bunch of examples and found that both of these types of figurative language equate two different things that share a common characteristic.  The difference is that similes use ‘like’ or ‘as’, and metaphors do not.  We agreed this was a fairly simple and easy to remember distinction.

Tonight students have a list of sentences that use figurative language.  They should identify if each sentence is an example of a simile or a metaphor.

On the opposite side is a list of simple sentences.  Students should take each sentence and practice making them a bit more interesting by re-writing them as a simile.

Fig Language 1

 

In Science we talked about the weather and the different ways in which we could measure the weather.  Saying things like “it’s hot” or “it’s cold” are relative, because what you think is cold might be just right for me.  We decided we would need to have precise measurements to truly be able to measure and record the state of the atmosphere.

Tonight students have a short passage to re-read (we read it together once) and some questions to answer.  As always, I expect reasoning!!

Weather Intro

Finally we reviewed some adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing with decimals.  Adding, subtracting, and multiplying should be no problem at this point.  As for the dividing, I want them to use the play money and divide by making groups as we have done in class, and as we did last night on our homework.

Tonight students have two new sets of decimals to do all of the operations on.

Jan 27 Math

 

so, tl;dr

Tell me if it’s a metaphor or a simile, and write some similes of your own:

Fig Language 1

Answer some questions about the weather:

Weather Intro

Do some operations with decimals (use your play money for the division!)

Jan 27 Math

 

And as always, read!!

 

Have a good one,

 

-Mr. Potter

 

Welcome back!

A 3 hour delay means we had approximately 90 minutes of class-time today.  booooooooos

Let’s keep our fingers crossed that we do not have a repeat of last year’s snowfall.

 

Even though we had just a bit of time today we did use that time to do some quick review of math and then talk about what we would be doing this quarter in language arts.

 

In math this quarter, we will be continuing our work with decimals and fractions.  We will also start working on perimeter, area, and volume.

 

Tonight students have a quick set of decimal review problems to do.  As always there is an example!

For the division problem, they have brought home their bags of money.  They should take the decimal amount out as money, and then perform the division by splitting it into groups of the given amount.

For example in the first problem we did .5 divided by .25

This questions asks how many .25 are in .5

So you take out .5 (5 dimes or 5/10ths of a dollar)

And you must split this into groups of .25  The number of groups you can make is the answer to this division problem.

You may have to change the way your decimal is formed.  For instance in the above problem you’d have to ungroup one of your tenths (dimes) into hundredths (pennies) in order to make groups of .25

Math Jan 26

 

In Language Arts we are going to be discussing figurative language, poetry, different genres of texts, and continue talking about logical thinking and arguments.

Tonight students have a little chart of statements.  They should write down whether each statement is literal or figurative.  If it is figurative, they should attempt to write the meaning of the statement.

Fig Language Jan 26

 

 

 

Also, the magnet application has been extended until January 29th!  If you haven’t already please take a look at my last post and take a look at the options available to you.

 

 

so, tl;dr

do some quick decimal review

Math Jan 26

identify some figurative statements

Fig Language Jan 26

 

And as always, read!!

 

Have a good one,

 

-Mr. Potter