Things are right back to normal.

I came back to a very positive report from our substitute yesterday.  She said the students did an excellent job and they got a lot done.  I apologize for not having an update yesterday as by the time I was done with the meeting and setup for today, it was a tad bit too late.

 

Today we spent a long morning checking to see if we were robots or not.  That is to say, are we so comfortable with what we are doing with our area models and partial products and the distributive property of multiplication over addition, that we can do it smoothly and without problems?  For some of us the answer is yes, but for some others we still need some practice.

We started talking about word problems and how to apply what we have been doing, and students received their motivation math books.  These contain just tons of good word problems and exercises that we will practice with throughout the year.  Their homework tonight is to do the problems on page 49 of the workbook.  They should show their work on a separate clean sheet of paper.

In Language Arts, we read some more of the Mysterious Benedict Society, and finally learned why the book is named as such.

We also took a look at our Sneaker stories again, and started to re-write, using our best ideas.  Students should have at least a one-page story written by tomorrow using this prompt.  We will start revising these and eventually turn them into some short stories.  I think it will be very entertaining, as the students are really have a good time with the idea of giant sneakers destroying their classroom.  I am a tad worried…..

We had a ROAR assembly today, in which we went over our ROAR expectations of respect, order and safety, awesome attitude, and responsibility.  ROAREE made an appearance, and a good time was had by all.

We had little time for science, but the students have a single question tonight to answer in their science journals:

When looking at our sprouting seedlings, some of the plants seem to be growing straight up, while others are growing at angles and still others almost horizontal.

Why are some plants growing straight up, and some sideways?

Students should think about this, and make an educated guess as to why some of our plants are acting this way.  They should explain their thinking as well, so a one-sentence answer will not do.

 

so, tl;dr

P49 in motivation math book

one page minimum sneaker story

answer this question in science journal:

Why are some of our plants growing straight up, and others are growing sideways?

As always, read for 35 minutes and get reading log signed

 

Have a good one!

 

-Mr. Potter