Tomorrow is Taki and Chips day!<\/p>\n
For our celebration for our silver medal, students may bring in some takis\/chips\/a snack and we will have a little bit of game time at the end of the day tomorrow.<\/p>\n
We spent a very long time discussing word problems today. \u00a0While much of the class is getting it, some students are still having trouble\u00a0visualizing what is going on within a story problem.<\/p>\n
I can’t stress enough how important it is that students have a definite plan in their head before they tackle a word problem. \u00a0This is why we are asking students to go about word problems in a certain way, and to get them used to going back and forth between equations and word problems on their own. \u00a0 Students should be asking themselves these questions:<\/p>\n
What is the question asking me?<\/p>\n
What information do I have?<\/p>\n
What can I figure out based on the information I have?<\/p>\n
Tonight students have a multi-step word problem to create on their own. \u00a0The\u00a0following set of equations should be the way in which the problem is solved:<\/p>\n
1 + 2 =<\/p>\n
5 + 3 =<\/p>\n
8 – 5 =<\/p>\n
So it looks like we are first combining 1 of something and 2 of something else. \u00a0Then combining 5 of something with 3 of something. \u00a0And then either taking 5 away from 8 of something OR comparing 8 of something to 5 of something…….<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Our science discussion was filled with vaults today!<\/p>\n
I told the students that they were going to be locked into a vault after a nuclear war with their group. \u00a0Each group member would be allowed to bring one thing of their choice. \u00a0The vault has access to sunlight, clean running water, and a basic bathroom. \u00a0The vault is airtight.<\/p>\n
On the first round, students all chose video games or ipods\/tablets, etc. \u00a0I then acted out what would happen to each unfortunate group as they ran out of oxygen.<\/p>\n
In the next round students brought plants (yay!). They didn’t run out of oxygen quite as quickly, but eventually the plants died off for some reason……<\/p>\n
Eventually some groups picked up on the fact that they would need a whole slew of organisms to survive in their vault. \u00a0They would need something to produce food and oxygen for themselves. \u00a0They would also need something to break down waste and other things back into nutrients, so that the plants’ soil would not eventually become barren.<\/p>\n
Tonight students should answer this question:<\/p>\n
What ended up being important in order to survive in the vault? \u00a0What things did the groups who survived bring? \u00a0Why were those items important?<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
We also talked about food webs, and made some more of those in class. \u00a0Tonight students should make their own food web. \u00a0The food web should be realistic, and made up of real, currently living, organisms. \u00a0It must contain at minimum:<\/p>\n
2 producers<\/p>\n
2 consumers<\/p>\n
2 decomposers<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
We also began writing some stories today. \u00a0Students had previously come up with a character of their own design. \u00a0We had used a character trait chart to design what type of character they would be. \u00a0We had also made story maps to help us begin our writing.<\/p>\n
Today we talked about how establishing a setting is an important start to a story, and helps immerse our reader in our world. \u00a0It also helps them to create a picture of what is going on in their\u00a0heads.<\/p>\n
We wrote a quick introduction paragraph describing the setting of our story. \u00a0We then broke into pairs and did TAG with our partners:<\/p>\n
Tell something you liked<\/p>\n
Ask a question<\/p>\n
Give a suggestion<\/p>\n
Tonight students should RE-WRITE their setting paragraph, trying to improve it based on their own ideas, or based on the questions\/suggestions they received from their partner.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
SO, tl;dr:<\/p>\n
Write a multi-step word problem that would be solved by the following equations:<\/p>\n
1 + 2 =<\/p>\n
5 + 3 =<\/p>\n
8 – 5 =<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Answer this question about our vault exercise:<\/p>\n
What ended up being important in order to survive in the vault? \u00a0What things did the groups who survived bring? \u00a0Why were those items important?<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Draw a food web that contains two producers, two consumers, and two decomposers<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Re-write introduction that establishes a setting for their story.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
And as always, read!<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Have a good one,<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
-Mr. Potter<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Tomorrow is Taki and Chips day! For our celebration for our silver medal, students may bring in some takis\/chips\/a snack and we will have a little bit of game time at the end of the day tomorrow. We spent a very long time discussing word problems today. \u00a0While much of the class is getting it, … Continue reading Homework Aug 20 (Thurs)<\/span>