2.23.12

Hello all and Happy second to last day of the week to you!  I feel like this week has absolutely FLOWN by...maybe we need a 3-day weekend and 4-day work week every week?!? 

READING:
Thursday is work completion day due to students being in orchestra, QUEST, or both.  Thus, the students had many things to get done:

• reading a 4th source in their Wright Brothers projects
• completing an evidence evaluation sheet on this magazine article and filling in the appropriate spaces on their organizers.
• completing a "Primary and Secondary Source" practice sheet
• completing a "Native Americans of Chesapeake Bay" activity
• and completing Vocabulary Lesson 4: Word Study Practice.

HOMEWORK: complete Lesson 4: Word Study; and complete the "Secondary Magazine/ Newspaper article activity sent home today (this entails finding a picture at home and becoming a secondary source through the construction of a newspaper or magazine article to describe what's going on in the picture).

MATH:
We are learning how to simplify fractions (or reduce them to the smallest version of the fraction).  This is most definitely an advanced concept so we worked long and hard on getting to mastery level.
To simplify a fraction you must (using the example 4/12):
1) Look at fraction and see if numerator is a factor of denominator or if they have a factor in common.
2) List factors of numerator AND denominator (factors of 4: 1, 2, 4.  factors of 12: 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 12).
3) Find greatest number that BOTH have in COMMON (common factors: 1, 2, 4 - so the greatest number in common is 4).
4) Divide numerator AND denominator by GCF (Greatest Common Factor - 4, so, 4 divided by 4 = 1; and 12 divided by 4 = 3).
5) Create NEW, simplified (or reduced) fraction with quotients: (1/3).  Voila...the fraction is simplified!
HOMEWORK: MY CLASS -->"Simplifying Fractions" sheet (FRONT SIDE ONLY!); MS. FREDERICK'S CLASS--> Do BOTH sides of "Simplifying Fractions" sheet. 

SCIENCE
Students got to participate in FUN stations with electricity today!  At one station, they even got to use our BRAND NEW iPads!!!!  Wowza!
HOMEWORK: none

WRITING:
We are continuing our organization of our narrative drafts and pieces the paragraphs together to make one final copy of a rough draft.  Today, we also drafted our climatic paragraph which describes the BIG event happening in our piece (the topic for writing). 
HOMEWORK: none

I hope you enjoyed the warm weather and sunshine today!  Be safe if we get any of the severe storms they're predicting!
xoxo,
Mrs. Thomas