Mr. Merrill’s ⅚ Humanities Wrap Up
Students started the week with our usual reading cafe and current events activities. Along with updating their book lists, students identified tier 2 words from their reading to represent in Frayer models. We also completed pre and post activities in preparation for our field trip to the Flynn Theater. For our Aladdin experience, we considered the production elements (masks, puppetry, and magic), the history of the story and the art of storytelling. We also used a variety of matinee activities to prepare students for watching a performance that has little dialogue. After the performance, we reflected on the plot and themes of the production, diagraming and making connections along the way. Finally, we started our Westward Expansion informational writing project. Students were introduced to our electronic and print resources in the library, thanks to Karen Hennig. They also started the research portion of the process, which will wrap up early next week.
CMP8
This week was a bit abridged with our trip to the Flynn. We continued to look at the anatomy of a quadratic equation and where quadratic functions are utilized. The maximum point of a parabola and the x intercepts were explored. The class will continue to create visual models in order to explain and solve quadratic relationships.
CMP7
This week we completed our scale drawings. The class has been working very hard to create similar and skewed drawings of their cartoons. Their wonderful masterpieces will be going up in the house next week. We began our new unit “Comparing and Scaling” which investigates ratios, rates and proportions.
Science 7/8
Filling in the geological gaps was the order of business this week. Readings, discussion, videos and timelines were explored to pull together our understanding of earth's forces, rock cycle, water cycle and layers of earth. Students worked on their review and created cards for the unit test. This comprehensive unit test took place on Friday.
The Week in Ms.Wesnak’s Room - Brought to you by Halina Vercessi and Olivia Voth!
7/8 Humanities: This week in Humanities started with some good ole Independent Reading Monday and thoughtful book analysis. Along with the many wonders of the warm and fuzzy, Carl Azuz, in the afternoon. On Tuesday, in the AM, we had our “person and event” due for our interview essay. Later on, in PM, we started our rotation stations for our 60’s unit! Wednesday brought us on a trip to the Flynn where we experienced the colorful and magical adventures of “Aladdin and Other Enchanting Tales”. The wild magic tricks and intricate puppeteering brought us to a world where genies grant wishes and boxes of gold appear out of nowhere. 7/8 Humanities PM sent us back, once again, to the 1960s and so brings us over the hump of the week! Thursday delivered us a very FUN grammar quiz. The plus, we got to say bingo, and say “hello” in another language when we passed it in! We went back to the 60s in PM and completed our stations! There was one particular station that we couldn’t help but enjoy! Ms. Wesnak prepared for us one of her fantastical and famous simulations. This one was focused around showing us what it was like to be a soldier during the Vietnam War! Today is Friday! In the AM, we worked on preparing our interview questions for the lovely parents and grandparents and other random lucky associates out there who get to have a sophisticated conversation about 20th Century events with a 7th or 8th Grader. I hope you enjoyed that run-on sentence and have a lovely weekend!
-Olivia and Halina
The Week in Ms.O’s Class
Math 5: We are moving towards deep understanding in geometry and have begun the downhill slide toward the assessment. We have spent this week doing some healthy review, reinstruction, and introducing new concepts related to 3-D solids, that I hope will lead to full proficiency on the assessment. Kathy and I have continued to explore the coteaching model, so you may have heard that I gave up the reigns a few times this week to Kathy as I scanned the room and supported students individually. Topics of Review this week...properties of polygons, the development of polygon riddles to reinforce our understanding of those properties. New this week...the topic of 3-D measurement! Introduction of attributes of geometric solids and a fun exploration of volume across a number of settings. We built three dimensional solids with magna tiles, took them apart with zoam tools, measurement of liquid volume, measurement of rectangular prisms and the age old question of why do we care?! Our assessment for Unit 3 will take place next Friday.
Math 6: We began investigations in our new book, Let’s Be Rational. This book extends and deepens our understanding of Comparing Bits and Pieces into operations with fractions. There are rich problem solving pieces that strengthen skills practiced in the last unit and will move students into multiplication and division of fractions and how we know when to multiply and divide them. I have already uncovered some misconceptions but also feel great about some of the prerequisite skills needed to do well in this area of math!
Science ⅚:I didn’t really know if it would all work...the telegraph thing and all, but it did! We set up two telegraph offices this week in our class and sent Morse Code back and forth to each other. How does this relate? A telegraph is an electromagnet and its use coincided with Westward Expansion, so the connection between science and social studies is seamless! So cool! Thanks to Dan for all of the hard work he has done in the spirit of building mechanisms with electromagnets! We are moving into a writing piece for Social Studies which includes deep understanding of the telegraph, so we will be doing this writing in science class. The last few weeks of science this month will be dedicated to natural resource understanding.
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