Week of October 28

Mr. Merrill’s ⅚ Humanities Wrap Up

• Writing - This week students were introduced to Kidblog.  Students wrote about and posted their goal for the 2nd trimester.  The post was to include a specific, reasonable goal that had a timeline and informed the reader of the steps to reach the goal.  

• Reading and Literature Group -  Our “Big” question is - How does the setting of your book create a story of mystery and spook?  Ask your student about his/her book and the setting of the book.

• History/Geography:  Lewis and Clark

We looked at the route that Lewis and Clark took across the West.  Students had to figure out what landforms, rivers, and modern day states and cities The Corps of Discovery must have encountered on their trip.  Students used a variety of maps to work this out, and are now putting all of this new learning into a category chart.

• Current Events - We discussed Local, National, and International news events.  Students worked in groups and had to find and cut out examples of each kind from a Burlington Free Press.  We then shared the week’s news by posting these news stories on a large chart at the front of the room.
  

Ms. Q’s Corner

CMP8

What do noxious weeds in Lake Victoria, mold growth  on bread and bacterial growth on your teeth have in common?  It's all about exponential growth!  All of these situations show increasing growth of a variable at an increasing rate.  We continued work within our Growing, Growing , Growing books to explore exponential tables, graphs and equations.  We also reviewed exponential rules and the fact that any number to the zero power is one. Growth factors and starting values were also investigated.

CMP7

We continued work within our  Accentuate the Negative books by using a variety of models to illustrate how to add and subtract positive and negative integers.  Such as when you add +12 + (-13) it is the same as subtracting 12-13.  Both of these number sentences come up with a number value of -1.  We learned about opposites and absolute value.

Science 7/8

We began the week with balancing equations and observing different types of chemical reactions which included synthesis, replacement and decomposition.  We  explored how atoms combine  using their valence electrons to form ionic and covalent bonds.  A very amazing demo where a solution was formed from ice tea mix (solute) and water (solvent) was truly tasty and riveting. We ended the week with a rousing jeopardy game and the chemistry unit test.

The Week in Ms.Wesnak’s Room

7/8 Humanities: This week in Humanities we started in the library continuing our research on our global village projects. Many students were overwhelmed by the wealth of knowledge that could be found in our own WCS Library. They used many books and took multiple pages of great notes! As the week continued we used our class time to work on our informative writing pieces. Students were provided an outline and an explanation of expectations. Students were also directed to a great organizational tool provided by the website ReadWriteThink. Many students used this tool because it enabled them to create a graphic organizer for their informative piece, which gave them a great headstart to their essay. As the week started to come to a close we took a break from all of our research, notes, and writing, and spent some time playing with words, writing in our journals, and listening to a read aloud. On Friday students took the time to have a “Family Meeting” and create a To-Do List of what is left to do in order to complete their project on time and to meet expectations. I also encouraged students to either sketch or imagine what they would like their display/interactive space to look like at the Global Village. By doing this students will have a better idea as to how much they may have to gather over the weekend and in early next week, to bring their space to life! Also, ask your child about the Global Village invitation! All students were given invitations to take home inviting you to our Global Village! We’d love for you to join and travel the globe by walking through our village. Don’t worry, passports will be provided! :)

News from Ms. O

Math 5 - Students have been moving aways from picture models of multiplication to the numbers only approaches for solving multi-digit multiplication problems.  We introduced partial products (also referred to bowtie method for a 2 digit x 2 digit), expanded form partial product (eg. 24 = 20 + 4), and the standard algorithm, which we all learned as kids!  The steps away  from the model were intentional and it was amazing how students moved from base ten paper, to open skeletal models, to the numbers only approaches as shared by teachers.  Students also were introduced to story problems involving multi-digit multiplication and to situations where we know one factor (dimension in a model), the area of the rectangle (the product), and don’t know the other dimension or factor.  This is the bridge to division, which will be our next topic of study.  I have given students to checkpoint assessments adding more data to indicate proficiency.  I’m back logged, so look forward to those scores by weekend’s end.

Math 6 - 6th graders have been working through our first investigation in Comparing Bits and Pieces. The introductory lessons were structured to introduce this idea of comparing numbers.  We sometimes call those comparisons ratios, if the comparison made is part to part.  An example of this would be the number of boys to the number of girls in a classroom.  At other times, those comparisons can be part to whole.  Students know that these comparisons are fractions and an example of this might be boys to number of students in class.  We are now fully into fractions and students are working to understand fundraising goals in terms of fraction of goal met and amount of money raised.  

⅚ Science - Beware!  We have entered the rock cycle!  The rock cycle is kind of a misnomer though because cycles imply predictability and the rock ‘cycle’ is anything but that.  Students journeyed as rocks making important claims like rocks change depending on the forces affecting them, that it takes a long time for rock to change, that rocks aren’t igneous forever, but can change to another rock type, like sedimentary AND no rock journey is the same.  We are yet again finding a way to fill in our Core Science Idea What evidence do we have that the Earth has changed in the past, is changing now, and will continue to change in the future?  We have answered questions like How are earthquakes, volcanoes, rocks, fossils, glacial scratches, convection currents all evidence that can help students answer that question and do so with scientific evidence.  On to fossils, erosion and weathering and water soon!