Day 92 - Mystery Sand

Hi, and welcome to February 1, 2011. Today is a Tuesday, so we came in, unpacked, and headed off to PE. We had a free day choice, so we voted on different games and ended up playing Pop Up. We came back at about 10:50 and immediately went down to the computer lab to take an online math quiz. It was a lot better, because you could go back and check your answers. We came back just in time for break. At 11:10, we did science. Today, we observed four different types of sand. One of them was sample of mystery sand. We wrote our observations down in our science journal.

Lunch came and went, and we did Social Studies. We started Qin Shihuangdi posters, so we worked on them. Then we did “Chaos in the Canyon”. We did the equivalent of 1 day. Then we did book clubs. At 3:25 we did PSV, and went home. Here’s the homework for tonight:

Homework
Read 30 minutes and Reading Record
AP, p.81

Day 91 - Last Half Day

Good morning! Today is January 31, 2011, and today is another half day. This morning, we came in and unpacked our things, and got straight to work. At 9:05, we headed down to Music. We are doing a play called “Bullies Anonymous”, and today we got our parts. We rehearsed the script, and sang our graduation song. Then we came back to class and watched a speech from Barack Obama on education. We took notes, had a chat about how serious education is, and turned our notes in. After that we did math. We did appointment wheels and got to work, but it wasn’t working out, so we went back to working individually. The end of the day crept up, and it was soon time to pack up and leave. Here’s the homework for tonight:

Homework
Read 30 minutes and Reading Record
Amelia Earhart Packet
Type Color Poem
BP3, p 28, Q# 25 & 27-33, Bonus Q# 50-55

Day 90 - Halfway through the year

Hi, and welcome to January 28, 2011, the 90th day of school! Today is a half day again. We have library, so at 9:14, we headed out. We went over daily math, after we talked about the seriousness of education and the economy. We discussed how important it was for all of us to work hard and stay focused on what is important. The U.S. was rated 17th on a graph rated on the GDP, and our test scores. Shanghai was off the chart, and was rated 1st on the graph. Then we went over daily shape. After we cleared that, we did math. Today, we did review, because half the class needed it. It was beneficial to all of us. Plus we got a head-start on our homework. Speaking of, here it is:

Homework
Read 30 minutes and Reading Log
AP p. 84 & 85

Day 89 - Half Day 1

Good morning! Today is January 27, 2011, and today’s a half day! Everyone’s getting out at 12:00. This morning we came in, unpacked our things, and got straight to work on our daily math. We don’t have specialists today. At about 10:00, we did, “Chaos in the Canyon”!!! Everyone was so excited. We transformed and got all our stuff out. Once we were in our groups, we opened up our journals. We drew diagrams of our rafts, and where we would put our luggage, supplies, and our group members. We also chose our group names. Our goal is to get from Lee’s Ferry to Havasu Canyon, which is 90 miles! Everyone did the equivalent of 2 days. One group got bitten by a rattlesnake. At 11:00 we worked with our UWB Buddies. Then at 12:00, everyone packed up and left. Here’s the homework.

Homework
Read 30 minutes and Reading Record
BP2, p 28, Q# 17-24 & 40-44
Bonus Q# 49

Day 88 - Art Docent

Hi everyone! Welcome to school. Today is January 26, 2011. Everyone came in and unpacked, and headed down to music. We are doing a skit called Bullies Anonymous. Turns out, we only have two weeks to learn our parts and rehearse because the teachers wanted to have it then. So we read the rest of the script, and signed up for parts (We gave preferences on whether we wanted to be a bully, a teacher, or the chorus, and how good we were at singing solos, and our preference for the size of our parts. When we got back, Mr. Nash did math. We did the same thing, multiplying decimals. Our goal was to understand place value, and to come up with factor pairs. We transformed into groups of 4, and got to work. We focused on using multiplication to find the products that were listed in the book. For example, we had to find two numbers to that gave a product of 134.4. We also did “What number times 0.3 gives the product 9?” Then we stopped for break.

After break, we did science. You remember I said we designed experiments on Tuesday? Well we did them today. We took our rocks, and made our observations. Then the fun began. Everyone loaded their rocks into their jars. Mr. Steele had a timer, so he said go, and it got really noisy, really fast. One person from every group was shaking their jar. At the end of the minute, we made our observations. We did the same thing again, until the 3 mins. time. Then we went non-stop until 4 minutes (we traded off). Then we finished our experiment (Summary, Conclusion, and Improvements. It was lunch time, and most people went to Mrs. Miera’s Baby Shower. After lunch, we did Art Docent. We studied Paul Cezanne. He was born in France, and his father was a banker. All Paul wanted to do was do art, and he continued to do art throughout his life. He made Still Life art. We are doing a portrait of fruit. Here’s the homework for tonight.

Homework
Read 30 minutes & Reading Record
BP3, p 28, Q# 7-10 & 12-16, Bonus: #11

Day 87 - Multiplying Decimals

Good morning Mr. Steele’s class! Today is January 25, 2011. We started our morning off by going to PE at 9:05 in the morning. In PE, today is our last day of hockey. The people who were in the game on Monday got to finish the last 1 minute of their game. After PE, we finished calendar math and went over daily shape, daily conversion, and daily shape. Then at about 10:10, we did math. We started Investigation 2.1, multiplying decimals. We got with our 4:00 appointments and got to work. The trick to multiplying decimals is to think of the problem as a regular multiplication problem. Once you solve the problem, go back and count the # of numbers after the decimal (s) in the problem. Then, go to the end of your answer and count to the right (towards the ones place) however many numbers you counted after the decimal in the problem numbers. We took a break at 11:00- 11:00, and then got back to math.

At about 11:25, we started science. In science, we looked at sand. Where did it come from? How did it get there? Turns out, the oldest rock in the Grand Canyon is found under the Muav Limestone, which rock is 1,700,000,000 years old! A question was if sand comes from broken up rocks, how can we test this idea? So we got to design an experiment. 12:10 came, so we went out to recess and lunch. After lunch, we did Ketchup and Mustard. We had to do (in priority order) 1) Science Summative, 2) Amelia Earhart Packet, 3) Writing Prompt, 4) Color Poem, 5) Emperor Poster. At 1:45 in the afternoon, we took a trip down to the computer lab to type up our goals and finish our shopping lists, and do our power points for conferences. When we came back, we continued to work on things we needed to catch up so we didn’t have (as much) homework. At 3:20 we did jobs and wrote down the homework. At 3:25, we did PSV. And that was the end of our day. See you tomorrow!

Homework
Read 30 min. and Reading Record
BP3 p. 28, Q# 1-6 & 34-39
Bonus Q# 46-48
Amelia Earhart Packet

Day 86 - Online math test

This morning in class we came into class and unpacked our things. Now that we are back from the weekend we had to go to specialists. We had PE today and we played regulation hockey. We played about 5 games and had a lot of fun playing it. When it was 9:45, we lined up and headed back to class. At about 10:00, we went down to the computer lab. Mr. Steele had been designing a math test for us. So we went down to test it. At 11:30, we had a five minute break to stretch our legs, and eat our snacks. After that, instead of doing science, because of time, we worked on color poems until lunch. When we came back from lunch, we had a social studies test on Qin Shihuangdi and the Qin dynasty. When we got done with that, we had to work on, #1 Amelia Earhart, #2 Color poems, and #3 Posters of Qin Shihuangdi (Wanted or Reward). At the end of the day we did book clubs. We packed, stacked, and vacuumed, and wrote down homework. That was our Monday.

Homework
Read 30 mins and reading record
Parent & Child Goal Sheet NOT DUE UNTIL THURSDAY January 24, 2011
Math AP p.80