Today was a review of theme 1 day. Therefore I expect and hope that your son/daughter can catch up on reading for pleasure since there is no reading from our Language Arts book this week.
We did our review spelling for the theme. 30 regular words and 15 challenge words. I'll return their vocabulary grades to them on Wednesday so they can focus just on the words they need to review for our theme 1 test next Wednesday.
We rolled out our first theme project. So we spent time discussing options and expectations. Students may work alone or with one partner.
Students are expected to work primarily here at school. They will be given 10 45 minute periods to complete their project and prepare to present it to our class.
The presentation can not exceed 5 minutes.
Students were deciding today to work solo or with a partner. Then decide 'WHAT DO I WANT TO LEARN MORE ABOUT REGARDING THIS THEME." It was emphasized that this had to be the highest priority since whatever project they decided needed to answer this question. Finally they started the process of deciding which type of project to do.
The key point discussed and emphasized was no matter how cool or awesome their final project was, it needed to answer this first question, what do you want to learn more about in relationship to the theme of Nature's Fury.
Here is the link with the project ideas:
http://www.rogertaylor.com/clientuploads/documents/references/Product-Grid.pdf
The energy in the room was strong since students should be fired up because they get to choose a topic related in some way to Nature's Fury, research and learn more about it and then present what they learned in a meaningful manner. There was some excitement in learning something beyond Powerpoint and trying out this new on-line presentation tool called:
http://prezi.com/
Math:
More practice with the distributive property aka decomposing your numbers.
We as a class completed 7 of today's and tomorrow's homework assignments. I wanted to show them how you can make these larger multiplication problems easier based on how you best multiply or think.
Tonight and tomorrow, all problems must be decomposed/distributive property.
Page 61-62 1-39 odds due Tuesday
Page 61-62 evens due Wednesday
SMART Responses were also used during math time today. The entire class is up and running on the smart response devices. The first quiz almost had some tears and some students who hadn't taken me serious about having to buckle down and work found out that the quiz don't lie. I threw out the first quiz since so many of them were either struggling with using the device correctly, so stoked to be using the devices that they didn't concentrate on the math at hand and some people tried to rush to make up for lost time.
These devices are great because I can see immediately which students are understanding today's homework and who are not. Also some of the errors tend to be copied by other students and we can teach and readdress where the mistake happened. Please ask your son/daughter about the Smart Response device.
http://www2.smarttech.com/st/en-US/Support/SMARTResponse/ResponsePE.htm
Social Studies:
We started "decomposing" the preamble of the American Constitution. I'm not sure if your son/daughter told you but we celebrated the Constitution on Friday, September 17th The history channel and Houghton Mifflin put together a great webcast where they had dramatic readings of part of the Constitution and they talked about how the Constitution continues to evolve (abolishing slavery, women voting, Civil Rights, equal education, freedom of the press as the press evolves, etc..)
Today we discussed who they meant with "we the people"; What type of "union"? What is Justice? What is tranquility?
**extra credit if your son/daughter wants to memorize the preamble of the Constitution and recite it in front of the class or use a Flip Video and record it. Either way, they can earn extra credit.
At the end of the day we prepared for the entire week ahead. They had time for putting it into their day planner. We also co-created a "priority list" and what it would look like based on our homework for the week.
Well, I'm off to see if Alex Smith can prove me wrong and act like he is an NFL quarterback. I hope I'm wrong because they have no plan B nor plan C.
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| Photo from Zimbio Magazine |
Have a glorious week!
Mr. Hubbard
Homework for the week:
Math:
Page 61-62 1-39 odd *every problem must be decomposed/distributive property due Tuesday
Page 61-62 2-38 even *every problem must be decomposed/distributive property due Wednesday
Page 64-65 1-24 all show your #'s when you are estimating due Thursday
Page 66-67 1-30 all due Friday
Free Writes (a 2 free-write week):
Animals – due Thursday ; tell me something about animal or make up a story with animals
"The ultimate superhero would……" due Friday
Social Studies 155-162 due Wednesday
Grammar packet – due Friday (I will handout on Tuesday, I need to make copies)
Theme 1 project – decide what you want to learn more about, finalize planning and beg and request needed supplies. Due ASAP and nightly.
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