REMINDER: Tomorrow is group picture day. Students took home another order form for these group pictures on Wednesday. If you would like one, the order form was in their Monday folder, or they can simply bring in 10 dollars per picture and I will reciept it to them. Checks should be made payable to Strawbridge Studios inc.
Whew! Today was super busy. We were doing things straight up until the bell. There are just not enough hours in the day.
We did a LOT of work today with equivalent fractions, and how they can help us add and subtract fractions with unlike denominators. We also did a tremendous amount of pair work, and the students are getting much better at explaining concepts to each other.
In order to get in a lot of this practice, students have two worksheets to do, adding and subtracting fractions with unlike denominators.
They MUST show their work, which means show what equivalent fractions they used, and how they converted their fractions (by multiplying by a form of 1) and what form of one they used. This should not be news to the students.
In Language arts, we are wrapping up our time with The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe. I will miss this book, as it has really sparked some fantastic discussions here. Today we even had students listening into and trying to talk into OTHER groups’ discussions with their own opinions.
Students also posted their opinion on the messageboard of who is the main character. We have some fairly varied responses and justifications in there. If you would like, please feel free to go have a look at what your child thinks.
We had a frank discussion also today as to what constitutes a post of substance, and what constitutes noise on the messageboard. For the most part I believe the students took the talk to heart, and I have seen some improvements already.
For Language Arts tonight, students should finish, and then write a two paragraph reader’s response to The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe. Stories often detail the growth or downfall of characters. Their response should be to focus on a character from the book, and tell how that character changed from the beginning of the book to the end. Their response should include traits of their chosen character at the beginning of the book (with proof!) and then traits that changed at the end of the book for that character (with proof again!). This is due tomorrow, and will be submitted for a grade.
We then went right to the bell in science, as groups presented their findings to questions such as “what makes a rolling ball stop?” and “which falls faster, a bowling ball or a marble?”. The ability of the students to work collaboratively in groups is improving daily it seems, and I am quite pleased with their presentations today.
As always, the tldr;
Two math worksheets:
One two-paragraph paper detailing the changes one character from TLTW&TW underwent from beginning to end. The paper should include proof/examples from the text that support your claims.
I hope everyone has a good evening, and look forward to seeing you all tomorrow!
-Mr. Potter