Wednesday December 3, 2014

Today kicked off with a morning meeting lead by Amelia.  She discussed the time her car ran out of gas on the way to the beach, and had tons of connections to our Character Counts wall.

In science we continued to closely observe our pennies but this time using hand lenses.  The details and observations were so much more in depth!  We discussed why scientists revise their observations and made connections to the past two days lessons.  Ask your child why scientists must make close observations and then revise their observations over time.

Our focus in math today was subtracting mixed numbers.  This included borrowing from whole numbers!  Tough stuff but as a class we rose to the challenge.  Below are two videos to help with homework tonight (HINT! Always remember to write your problems out the vertical way!):

Borrowing when you cannot subtract fractions

Subtracting fractions from whole numbers

Today's writing lesson was one I was hesitant on attempting, but we will follow good old Lucy Caulkins and see how her idea/guidance pans out.  Today students wrote a flash draft on the endangered animal that they chose yesterday.  This flash draft was based on no research, only prior knowledge.  The purpose of this is to allow students to make misconceptions because as they research, they will adjust and actually absorb more from the research.  Interesting theory, and we will see how this works tomorrow when we start researching.

In reading we read about the Everglades and how it is so important to protect them.  The author used the strategy of persuasion to entice the readers to do what they can to preserve the Florida Everglades.

Homework

Math- SL 8.3

RELA- Sign of the Beaver- read Ch. 7; answer Chapter 6 and 7 questions (go back, reread, use text evidence and elaboration to answer the questions)

Spelling- due Dec. 9

Other- Planner signed