We are getting back into the swing of things! Always nice to actually be at school on a Wednesday! Been a while since we had that.
As always, we have our 35 minutes of reading and reading log tonight. For at least some of that, students should read chapter 11 in The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe.
We had a very lively discussion yesterday and today about whether doing bad things (like Edmund does) necessarily makes you a bad person, or whether there are mitigating circumstances. The students were very animated with their answers. It was a lot of fun. We might have to do a journal response so that students can get their ideas out.
The students should think ahead, as a full rough draft of their fantasy story is due on Friday. I will read these over the weekend and offer some feedback on Monday. Therefore it is IMPERATIVE that students have a full rough copy to hand in to me Friday.
In math, we are working on multiplying fractions, and exactly what that means. We are focusing on the idea that multiplying by a fraction can mean taking a fraction (less than a whole) of something else. So we are interpreting an equation like 1/2 x 1/2 as taking one half of one half. We have been modeling this with bar models, as using circles and pies can get messy and difficult to read. This is by no means the ONLY thing that an equation like that can mean, but it is our starting point.
To demonstrate their understanding of this possible interpretation, students should write a story problem for the equation 1/3 x 3/4, and turn this in, solved, tomorrow.
Finally, we just started our work on figurative language, and students have two simile worksheets to finish tonight as well. Remember that similes are when we use ‘like’ or ‘as’ to compare two things.
That was long, here’s the tldr;
2 simile worksheets
one math story problem
read ch 11
Keep writing fantasy story