TA’s Notes:
***Please do not send in any food to be shared among Voyager students***
The Week in Mr. Merrill’s Room (⅚ Humanities):
Peace Day was on Monday. We placed our Peace Pinwheels on the lawn in the morning and we wrote peace acrostic poems for our Peace Magazines. Students also presented their Peacemaker Infographics to the class. We continued our read aloud of I Am Malala. Students added new vocabulary to their Tier 2 lists; defining new words and creating word maps.
We continued our study of the components of a sentence; working on identifying action verbs, direct objects, and prepositions.
Our reading practice consisted of identifying reasons and evidence in informational text. We used an article on the Washington Redskins and the battle to change the team’s name. Students practiced finding reasons and evidence that supported each of the claims made in the article. We will be writing next week using evidence from I Am Malala to support reasons for a claim about the book.
The Week in Ms. O’s Room (⅚ Math & Science):
Math 5:
We spent the week working on Multiplication Strategies based on some of the work we have been doing in class. We discussed and worked on the following strategies:
- Halving and Doubling - Example is 5 x 44 = 10 x 22 = 220
- Ten Times more or less - Example 2 x 40 = 80 so 2 x 400 = 800
- The Over Under Strategy - Example is 100 x 12 = 1200 then 99 x 12 = 1188 and 101 x 12 = 1212
- Halving - 10 x 88 = 880 so 5 x 88 = 440
- Ratios - 4 x 35 is like 1 x 35, double it and you get 2x35=70 and then double again and you have 4 x 35 which is 140
Although the video link below is about a third grade classroom, it is a good example of the wisdom of mental math.
Reminder: One hour of Moby Max this week. Week begins Monday and ends on Sunday night! So a few more days for the first Moby assignment. 60 minutes /week = Meeting the Standard Scorepoint 3. 70 minutes/week = Exceeding the Standard Scorepoint 4
Math 6:
This week we...learned more about the properties of numbers by learning about prime factorization. Prime factorizations allows us to see a number, any number, as a product of prime factors. For example, the number 100, is the product of 2 x 50, but both of those factors are not prime. However, 2 x 5 x 5 x 2 is made up of all prime numbers and its product is 100. Voila! A prime factorization of 100. We noticed that when you prime factorize a number, it is a property of that number and can allow you to do things like find all the factors of a number. The prime factorization for 12, as seen in the image below, allows us to find all the factors of 12 - 1, 12, 3, 4, 2 and 6.
Reminder: One hour of Moby Max this week. Week begins Monday and ends on Sunday night! So a few more days for the first Moby assignment. 60 minutes /week = Meeting the Standard Scorepoint 3. 70 minutes/week = Exceeding the Standard Scorepoint 4
Science ⅚:
We spent the week engineering electromagnets. Students have learned that a current, running through a circuit, creates a magnetic field and therefore acts like a magnet. Specifically, we call it a temporary electromagnet. So cool. So we engineering a way to pick up paperclips and to strengthen an electromagnet by coiling the wires in our circuit around an iron nail to make a stronger electromagnet without needing to add more batteries. We collected data (eg. how many paperclips could we pickup with 5 coils, 10 coils etc.) and then graphed our data. We found that the graphing experience (whoo, this was tough, cuz we are also trying to figure out how to graph) tells us more about the patterns related to coiling wire around an iron core.
The Week in Ms. Wesnak’s Room (⅞ Humanities):
Tweet the Week:
- Peace week, day off, pinwheels, Recipe for Peace
- #PeaceOneDay; pinwheels, finished Seussosophy, and day off! #PinwheelsforPeace
- #peacepeacepeacePEACE #theendofSeussosophy
- We had a day off due to Yom Kippur!
- Celebrating Peace Day on a peaceful Monday!!
- Peace day and pinwheels. Recipes and reading. + 1 day off!
- Wheel of Fate excitement and Peace Day celebrations!
- #Recipe for Peace for Dayz✌😀
- #MyPeaceMaker. Who’s your hero?
- Peace 1 Day, Wheel of Fate
- #YogaPeace #WheelofFate Wheel of Fate and Yoga is bae #YOLO
- #PlantForPeace #PeaceOneDay
Our week started off like any other with our Literacy Rotations on Monday. Students are continuing to build their vocab through FreeRice.com, independently read, and conference with me about their reading. We are slowly getting into this routine, which is a great ease into the week. On Tuesday we wrapped up our work with Seussosophy and students turned in some very creative written work and illustrations. Coming back to school on Thursday after our day off for Yom Kippur, students took part in a journal write answering the question: Who is your hero and why? The class was prompted by this fantastic, funny, and inspirational video from Kid President: Heroes. This was a great way to start thinking about the great peacemakers of our time, as many see them as heroes too. Students were assigned a short research project to study a Great Peacemaker of their choice. This is a mini project administered through Google Classroom. Students will be working on their research, writing, and editing skills through this piece.
Our afternoons this week have been dedicated to bringing our Peace One Day unit to a close with a little celebration, creative writing, and artistic expression. Monday, September 21st was International Peace Day, so we celebrated by making Pinwheels for Peace. Students expressed their views on peace, tolerance, and nonviolence through words and illustrations on a square piece of paper. With some folding and small cuts in the paper we were able to make a pinwheel with a brass clasp and straw. We planted our pinwheels outside of Voyager House and then spent a little time outside. Students also made Pledges for Peace day. Some of the pledges included inviting someone new to sit with them at lunch, making room for someone on the bus, and leading peaceful yoga during our morning core time. My pledge for peace was geared towards the environment, so every student was given a bulb to plant in the ground now and watch for its growth in the spring - Plant for Peace. This was also in reflection of a Great Peacemaker we learned about named, Wangari Maathai who founded the Greenbelt Foundations. As the week went on students continued working on their Recipes for Peace, and on Thursday we started to build our class cookbooks. Some students added some great illustrations to the book! On Friday we kicked off our United Nations unit! We will continue this unit next week with a focus on understanding what the United Nations does, who is a part of the United Nations, and learning about the Global Goals for Sustainable Development.
The Week from Ms. Q’s Room (⅞ Math & Science):
CMP7
This week we continued our work with polygons by looking at symmetry through tessellations. We went back to finding patterns in the external angles of polygons and how knowing the sum of external angles can help us find the sum of internal angles of a polygon. We ended the week with a check-up and next week we will take a look at the relationship between triangles and their side lengths. Students will continue skill work using Mobymax at home or during core periods at school.
CMP8
Our work in Thinking with Mathematical Models this week reviewed all things linear; how to find equations from a table, graph, and two points. We also reviewed our understanding of variables in an equation in context to a situation. Near the end of the week, we dabbled in inequalities and how to represent them in an equation and a graph. We will have a quiz next week. Students will continue skill work using IXL at home and during core periods at school.
Science 7th/8th
Understanding scale and proportion is an important theme within Next Generation Science Standards. In our cell investigation we are focusing on the following standard:
MS-LS1-2.
|
Develop and use a model to describe the function of a cell as a whole and ways parts of cells contribute to the function. With emphasis on the cross cutting concept of scale and proportion.
|
This week began with the introduction of cells and their organelles. Students are working on creating scaled models of a cell with the parts included. We are looking to scale up from microns (millionth of a meter) to centimeters and beyond. We calculated the average size of organelles for both plant and animal cells. From this point students will produce a scale model with emphasis on size and the jobs that organelles play in the role of the cell. The project rubric and outline is in Google Classroom.
No comments:
Post a Comment