Student Led Conferences

Please check your child's SPACE folder for your scheduled time on Friday, May 15th. Remember this is not a meeting with me, but a chance for your child to share his/her work with you.

Ancient History Website

All of the students in my class have been excited about learning about ancient civilizations. I have found a great site that allows students to read about the ancient civilizations as well as play games and participate in interactive learning.

http://www.mrdonn.org/index.html

Check it out!

okay...it's been a long time

It seems my home computer does not like me or my thousands of family pictures and class pictures that I download. I am here to try this again.

Recently we have started a unit on polygons and polyhedra (3 dimensional geometric figures). The students had a very special math activity on Wednesday. They were to build the figures with toothpicks (line segments) and clay balls (vertices). Then they carefully dipped the figures in bubble solution to see the faces. They had a ball!

What's the Matter?

We are currently finishing up a small study on matter. We have used double beam balances to find the mass of solids. We also determined that it doesn't matter if you take apart an object or keep it together, the mass will be the same.

We are taking a small test on Friday, 10 questions.

*Know the definition of mass*

Also, today we looked at matter with unusual properties. Oobleck...is it a solid or a liquid? I can't believe I forgot my camera! The students were hysterical.

The kids wanted the recipe for Oobleck:

7 tablespoons corn starch

4 tablespoons water

Mix in a bowl or bag and knead until mixed!

Median, Mode and Range

Quiz Tomorrow!
Hint: Study the steps you have to complete in order to find the median. There is a very specific thing you must first do before you pick the number in the middle! ;)

Progress Reports

Progress Reports go home on Friday. Please sign and return these as soon as possible.

Measurement?

This week in Math we will be beginning our measurement unit. Encourage your child to estimate how long something is in inches and centimeters and then check. Also at the grocery store have your child help estimate the weight of something in the produce aisle and then actually weigh it.

There are many great activities to participate in over the next few weeks.

We will be participating in a lot of Test Taking Skills practice, please make sure your child is here unless it is absolutely necessary to be out.

Mummies and Math

Today we began by discussing our SweetTart data. We gathered information about how many hearts were in each bag. We also began a discussion of most likely and least likely. Since most of the individual bags had 6 hearts in each, it was most likely that if we opened another bag, there would be 6 hearts in the bag.

Then we moved on to mummies. We became the ancient embalmers and performed the mummification tasks on stuffed animals. We began by making an incision and removing the "lungs, stomach, liver and intestines." Then we rubbed the body with "oils and perfumes." After covering the body with natron (salt, Na) and letting it sit for "40 days" we began wrapping the bodies in linen.

The kids had a ball and will never forget this day!

Friday, February 13th...

We have a lot of things planned today...so be ready!

Ancient Egypt

We found this great site. It has some great links to Ancient Cultures.


http://www.mrdonn.org/ancienthistory.html

Test Tomorrow!

Are you ready? Go over your notes and study guide...Remember think...How can I split up $1.00 with four people?

Fruit Loop Fractions

Today, we began working on finding the fractional part of a set. Students were asked to create 2 Fruit Loop necklaces one of 24 and another of 30. One their necklace of 24, one fourth had to be pink Fruit Loops and so on. One student explains her necklace and another shares his Challenge necklace of 40.

Back on Track

Okay, so I've seen better blogging days. I am back on track. My computer was down and was getting some updates.

I am up just in time to inform you guys of our Math Test on Thursday, February 12th. I will be sending home a study guide tomorrow. The test is on fractions.