Wednesday #62 2011 2012

Day 63
CNN Students
Today’s subjects didn’t seem extra extraordinary however it took us to some real deep places with our discussions.  I would strongly encourage you to continue the discussions at home.  
A piece on Pakistan, Afghanistan and USA led to a long discussion about alliances with potential bad guys, nuclear power/forces between countries, why do people/countries go to war, and the # of nuclear power versus feeding those who starve.   American Airlines going broke led to discussions regarding what is bankruptcy?  What is it for an individual and company?  What does that mean?  We made reference to our Monday discussion on a business being in the red or black.  Congress debating extending the unemployment benefits led to a inquisitive discussion about furlough days, what does it mean to be laid off, why does a bank/lender technically own many homes, why pay off a house over 20 or more years and pro/cons of extending unemployment benefits.  Students were curious about the soccer head injuries that occur within the brain swelling and our skull when players head the soccer ball.  Finally we had  a quick discussion about the Mars mission that hopes to discover once and for all if there is or ever have been life on that planet.

45 minutes of assessments for about 10 of the students.  The other students read for 20 minutes and practiced www.ixl.com for 20 minutes.

Theme 3 skill discussions.  Today we had a discussion regarding how important the perspective  or the point of view of the author is when assessing the information that you reading.  Besides being important reading strategy for May testing, this is just a great topic for a media enabled generation of kids that can “google that up.”  
Theme 3 Test on 12/8
Click here for the study guide

Science -- Mrs. Wilmott offered extra credit last night and about 10 kids chose to bump up their science grade by 10% and they got to eat NASA ice-cream.  

Singing

Grammar review -- a great day of reviewing when to use singular and plural verbs.  Tonight’s homework is all about irregular verbs.   Click here for both tonight’s homework and also a great reference of the top 100 irregular verbs that we use in writing.

The first Thanksgiving and the trip over here on the Mayflower....Ship’s Biscuits, literally sitting on the pot, 9 weeks trapped inside C-5, and why has mankind salted/smoked their food for hundreds of years.

Math:
LCM work, more convincing people to buy into the Venn Diagram method for find LCM and GCF and adding fractions with unlike denominators.  
Click here to get the handouts and the math notes

Kind regards,
Ron Hubbard
http://www.diigo.com/user/iamron
http://mrhubbardsclass.blogspot.com/
Use my Gmail account and you can make me your coach on http://www.khanacademy.org/class_profile

“When the time to perform arrives, the time to prepare is past.”

John Wooden

Here is the homework for the week:
Math:
Page 254-255 1-29 odd due Thursday **must use the Venn Diagram
Page 256-257 1-31 odds due Friday **must use the Venn Diagram

Free-Write due Thursday:
“I love the winter time because.....”

Free-Write due Friday:
A free free-write

A grammar review handout will be given each day this week.

Theme 3 Test on 12/8
Click here for the study guide

**Famous American Report** handout this week but due dates begin in January

Language Arts Book (the large yellow book but NOT the Practice Book)
Read pages 262-278 by Friday
Answer any four questions on page 280 by Friday.  The answers must be in complete sentences.  I strongly recommend using the word “because” and you must make reference(s) to information found in the reading.  

Spelling and Vocab review test is on Friday
click here for the words

Tuesday #62 2011 2012

Day 62
I know super late but today I had many unexpected scenarios rise up.  

CNN Students
“Real” democracy reigns again in Egypt and we talked about how excited their citizens were to vote and make their voice count.  We talked about why a majority of elections in the USA do not create that type of excitement and turnout.    They are also holding elections in the Democratic Republic of Congo.    As a class we learned the difference between the two countries with the name Congo in them.   They then had an interesting piece about how the evaporation of the snow in the mountains has endangered many Alpacas (i.e. llama drama).  So the alpaca farmers are going Tom Sawyer on the mountains in hope of bringing down their internal temperature.

Another 60+ minutes working on our math assessments.  

We then reviewed last night’s grammar lesson.  We used the response devices so we could discuss the handful of problems that the class scored under 75%.   
Here is today’s grammar homework.  Click here.

Science rotation...

Math -- The entire class did some more practice with fractions.  Again more emphasis on how to go about adding and subtracting fractions.  
Click here for our notes
Click here for the complete lesson notes that we are using

Universal Access rotation....no homework.

Kind regards,
Ron Hubbard
http://www.diigo.com/user/iamron
http://mrhubbardsclass.blogspot.com/
Use my Gmail account and you can make me your coach on http://www.khanacademy.org/class_profile

“When the time to perform arrives, the time to prepare is past.”

John Wooden

Here is the homework for the week:
Math:
Page 252-253 1-27 all due Wed **must use the Venn Diagram
Page 254-255 1-29 odd due Thursday **must use the Venn Diagram
Page 256-257 1-31 odds due Friday **must use the Venn Diagram

Free-Write due Thursday:
“I love the winter time because.....”

Free-Write due Friday:
A free free-write

Possessive and Contractions paper due Tuesday
Click here for the handout
A grammar review handout will be given each day this week.

Book Card is due on November 30, 2011
Click here for the instructions and also you can try dropping your file into the book card folder
**I set up this folder so you can sign in and drop off book card files (power points or PDFs)

Theme 3 Test on 12/8
Click here for the study guide

Please bring your Thanksgiving packet to school on Tuesday

**Famous American Report** handout this week but due dates begin in January

Language Arts Book (the large yellow book but NOT the Practice Book)
Read pages 262-278 by Friday
Answer any four questions on page 280 by Friday.  The answers must be in complete sentences.  I strongly recommend using the word “because” and you must make reference(s) to information found in the reading.  

Spelling and Vocab review test is on Friday
click here for the words

Monday #61 2011 2012

Day 61 of Week 14

CNN Students  -- Syria and sanctions.  We then had a pretty good conversation about what are sanctions, do they always work, and do they hurt only the people in power?  We then talked about how democracy will be in action as Egypt goes forward with their elections today.  Then we discussed Kuwait, why we are using it as a destination when our troops leave Iraq and Kuwaits role in the first Gulf War.  “Black Friday” -- most students did not know that black is a positive when discussing business economics.  No one in the class knew that “in the red” was the opposite and meant you were losing money.  The NBA returns!  We finished with quick overview of the brain yawning since it needs to literally cool-down and a solar airplane that uses no fuel.  

Spelling pretest “review week” -- click here for the words

Completing language arts and math assessments -- this took about 90 minutes

Math - everyone participated in a presentation about fractions and LCM.  We used a best practice from the guys in Alameda.  
Here are our notes were we both show how to find the LCM and why this makes our answers more likely to be correct when we add or subtract fractions with unlike denominators.  Click here for the notes.  
***www.ixl.com is currently down;  Our 30 day free trial period ended after 44 days.  However PFC has given them a check for a 12 month period.  It will begin no later than 12/1/11 so we will have our account running again no later than Thursday.

Prepare for the week -- we discussed what the game plan was for the week and we then wrote in our day planner for the week.  
Kind regards,
Ron Hubbard
http://www.diigo.com/user/iamron
http://mrhubbardsclass.blogspot.com/
Use my Gmail account and you can make me your coach on http://www.khanacademy.org/class_profile

“When the time to perform arrives, the time to prepare is past.”

John Wooden

Here is the homework for the week:
Math:
Page 249 1-25 ALL due Tuesday
Page 252-253 1-27 all due Wed **must use the Venn Diagram
Page 254-255 1-29 odd due Thursday **must use the Venn Diagram
Page 256-257 1-31 odds due Friday **must use the Venn Diagram

Free-Write due Thursday:
“I love the winter time because.....”

Free-Write due Friday:
A free free-write

Possessive and Contractions paper due Tuesday
Click here for the handout
A grammar review handout will be given each day this week.

Book Card is due on November 30, 2011
Click here for the instructions and also you can try dropping your file into the book card folder
**I set up this folder so you can sign in and drop off book card files (power points or PDFs)

Theme 3 Test on 12/8
Click here for the study guide

Please bring your Thanksgiving packet to school on Tuesday

**Famous American Report** handout this week but due dates begin in January

Language Arts Book (the large yellow book but NOT the Practice Book)
Read pages 262-278 by Friday
Answer any four questions on page 280 by Friday.  The answers must be in complete sentences.  I strongly recommend using the word “because” and you must make reference(s) to information found in the reading.  

Spelling and Vocab review test is on Friday
click here for the words

Character Attribute Awards....

Click here to vote for the monthly attribute

By paragraph I mean at least 3 to 5 sentences.

If you have time, you can watch this movie.  We will write about it when you return from break.

Monday, Day 57 of 2011 2012 year

It is “lucky” week 13.

Today is day 57 of the school year.

I’ll apologize ahead of time about this week, it will be hard to send out updates with this being student/parent/teacher conference week.  Some of the evenings end up running late and we still prepare for the next day so know that we are learning and that we care, just this could be the one and only update for the week.

CNN Students -- we strategically skipped last Thursday’s Cnn Students.  They brought up the Penn State, Paterno, football, etc..scandal and I felt that was something I did not want to discuss in class.  CNN did a great job of being vague, I just was worried some of our students may not show the same discretion.  Some students were bummed however I encouraged them speak w/ mom & dad.  I did use the opportunity to bring up our on-going discussion about the need for everyday heroes.  That we all can be heroes and everyone has the ability and in some cases “the moral right” to stand up for the meek or less fortunate.  
Today’s discussions were the APEC mtgs, Italy is searching for a new Prime Minister, Brazil is hosting the next World Cup however they are trying to fix some internal challenges prior to the big event, NASA has opened up their former Space Shuttle operations for field trips, and we learned more about the Dead Sea.

Preparing for student-led conferences.
We discussed what a 1,2,3 and 4 means on a report card.  
We discussed what is a well written and meaningful goal and how to write correctly.
We discussed a generic report card and what sections were on the report card.  
We then went over their script that can use during the meeting.  

DEAR time, IXL.com and writing down our homework for the week.  

Students were given time to have an opportunity to accomplish all three things and this allowed the five students with conferences tonight to prepare.  

As a class we did review this PowerPoint to ensure we understood how to simplify and/or reduce fractions.

Unique things this week:
Except those few students with a 20-25 minutes student led conference, there is no school on Friday.
All days end at 2:05 this week.

Homework for the week:
Math
236-237 1-15 all due Tuesday
Click here if you need some blank number lines for homework tonight.
238-239 1-13 all also due Tuesday
240-241 all due Wednesday **everyone must do these pages
Test Version A due Thursday
Topic 10 test due on Thursday

Vocab all due Wednesday
5 challenge words (posters or sentences/definitions)
P.B. 174,179 and 183
Word list is here

Grammar due Thursday
P.B. 184,185 and 186

Book Card is due on November 30, 2011
Click here for the instructions and also you can try dropping your file into the book card folder
**I set up this folder so you can sign in and drop off book card files (power points or PDFs)

Technology Thursday 11/10

1.  First watch this movie on our Armed Forces

2.  Second watch this movie on WWII

3.  Spend 20 minutes working on these division skills.
Start working on the first one and move up as you master it.

Division

• H.1 Division facts to 12
• H.2 Division facts to 12: word problems
• H.3 Divide multi-digit numbers by 1-digit numbers
• H.4 Divide multi-digit numbers by 1-digit numbers: word problems
• H.5 Divide by 1-digit numbers: interpret remainders
• H.6 Estimate quotients: word problems
• H.7 Division patterns over increasing place values
• H.8 Divide numbers ending in zeroes
• H.9 Divide numbers ending in zeroes: word problems
• H.10 Divide by 2-digit numbers
• H.11 Divide by 2-digit numbers: word problems
• H.12 Divide money amounts: word problems
• H.13 Estimate quotients
• H.14 Choose numbers with a particular quotient

4.  Spend 20 minutes working on these factoring skills.

Start working on the first one and move up as you master it.

Number theory

• K.1 Prime and composite numbers
• K.2 Prime factorization
• K.3 Prime factorization with exponents
• K.4 Divisibility rules
• K.5 Divisibility rules: word problems
• K.6 Greatest common factor
• K.7 Least common multiple

5.  Watch our next Khan Academy Video

Singapore Math: Grade 3a, Unit 1 (part 9) : More on number patterns with place value.

6.  Watch this video on long-division, please take notes.

7.  What is a Ponzi Scheme?  Make sure no one takes your money...watch this video.

Tuesday #54 2011 2012

Tuesday -- Day 54 (aka  2*3*3*3)

CNN Students
Students were very interested in what is manslaughter, how many doctors did Michael Jackson have and what is a fair/reasonable punishment for a accidentally killing someone.  There was a piece on the presidential reelection being 364 days away and how President Obama was already doing reelection things while the Republicans continue to the process of selecting someone to oppose him.   Italy may be in more debt than Greece?  This is leading to social unrest.  Thailand continues to be plagued by massive flooding.  Finally they showed an everyday hero that is making fresh homemade pasta for hungry children.  

DEAR time and complete the Heritage project

Language Arts time -- we completed the Katie’s Trunk story in class.  We had discussion about the “sorta” civil war that occurred between colonists and Tories.  
We then discussed how to most effectively complete open--ended questions using the word “because.”  Students then worked with three different partners to work on the six questions at the end of the chapter.  
Homework: complete the six questions found on page 304 of the large Language Arts book.

Science rotation

Math time -- more fraction fun with equivalent fractions
Students that actively took notes were able to complete much of tonight’s homework.
Here are our notes.
You can also access all of the Khan Academy movies having to do with fractions right here.  

U.A. rotation -- students were disrespectful to a student and to Mrs. Cargo.  Apology letters could be forthcoming depending on their behavior during Thursday’s rotation.

Art Night is on Thursday evening from 6:30 PM - 8:30 PM

Kind regards,
Ron Hubbard
http://www.diigo.com/user/iamron
http://mrhubbardsclass.blogspot.com/
Use my Gmail account and you can make me your coach on http://www.khanacademy.org/class_profile

“When the time to perform arrives, the time to prepare is past.”

John Wooden


Homework for the week:
Math
222-223 1-31 odd due Wednesday
234-235 1-15 all due Thursday

Language Arts -- Answer the questions 1-6 on page 304 of the large Language Arts Book.  Questions should be answered with complete sentences (i.e. use the word “because”) and refer to specific examples found in the story, Katie’s Trunk.  DUE WEDNESDAY

Vocab  all Wednesday
5 challenge words -- (sentences and definitions or well created mini vocab posters)
P.B.  159, 164, and 168

Grammar all due Thursday
P.B. 169,170,171 and 173

U.A. graph and colored nicely due Thursday

Freewrite due Thursday
Here some things that I am thanful for...(written from the heart and non-fiction)

Reading Around the World due Wednesday

Here is the RSVP line-up if you need to make changes or put it into your calender

Book Card is due on November 30, 2011
Click here for the instructions and also you can try dropping your file into the book card folder
**I set up this folder so you can sign in and drop off book card files (power points or PDFs)

Monday,Day 53, 2011 2012

Monday!!

Day 53.

CNN Students
Greece is once again the word and topic of discussion.  Potentially new leadership in government, European assistance forthcoming and deep cuts in government spending.
They then discussed the US unemployment rate and why that is an important factor to observe and evaluate.  We then talked about the earthquakes in Oklahoma and the pros/cons for preparing for earthquakes when you live in non frequent earthquake areas.   The also showed how Muslims are in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, right now. They`ve made a pilgrimage there for their religious ritual called Hajj.  Then we watched and discussed the challenges of traveling to Mars since it would take a 5+ year commitment into outer-space.  

DEAR time, Heritage project, and complete district assessments.  

Katie’s Trunk -- We began reading the story.  As we read the story we discussed and wrote on the board examples of what we called the “rebels” and the “Tories”;  We also talked about how trunks were popular before we had closets made into our house.

Math:  More fraction work.
Here are our notes.
You can also access all of the Khan Academy movies having to do with fractions right here.  
Students completed the first 8 problems as a class however some students did not take great notes so they created additional homework for themselves.  

P.E.

Monday -- prioritize and prepare for the week.
We discussed prioritizing and do the most urgent things first.  We then wrote out what needs to be completed this week.  
Students were then given 20 minutes to work on homework of their choosing.

Kind regards,
Ron Hubbard
http://www.diigo.com/user/iamron
http://mrhubbardsclass.blogspot.com/
Use my Gmail account and you can make me your coach on http://www.khanacademy.org/class_profile

“When the time to perform arrives, the time to prepare is past.”

John Wooden

Homework for the week:
Math
220-221 1-24 all due on Tuesday
222-223 1-31 odd due Wednesday
234-235 1-15 all due Thursday

Vocab  all Wednesday
5 challenge words -- (sentences and definitions or well created mini vocab posters)
P.B.  159, 164, and 168

Grammar all due Thursday
P.B. 169,170,171 and 173

U.A. graph and colored nicely due Thursday

Freewrite due Thursday
Here some things that I am thanful for...(written from the heart and non-fiction)

Reading Around the World due Wednesday

Here is the RSVP line-up if you need to make changes or put it into your calender