Welcome to the 2015-2016 school year! We are off to a GREAT start!

We have just begun a PBL about the Native Americans. Here is the problem/project we have posed to our students:

Over the next several weeks students will be exploring the ways in which the Native Americans lived and how the Earth around them affected the way they lived. They will be designing a museum for the Chattanooga History Center as they explore.

In my specific academy students will be learning about weathering and erosion. What's the difference? We have explored the different types  (wind, water, chemical, glacier) and looked for examples around our community. Here are some pictures of the fun we have been having!

Inventions

We have been discussing and researching different types of inventions that have been created over the years. We have each chosen an invention that peaked our interest and created a short presentation for it. Here are some of our presentations!

https://www.haikudeck.com/forks--science-and-technology-presentation-B9BnS099Ul
http://www.haikudeck.com/p/9J1qOoeJOM
http://www.haikudeck.com/p/28LEHpJfcm
http://www.haikudeck.com/p/j97TSXvvI8
http://www.haikudeck.com/p/XIErtit8bM
http://www.haikudeck.com/p/2wsdolVTua
http://www.haikudeck.com/p/bGMNVAo5aD
http://www.haikudeck.com/p/yWfapFnLFn

Fresh Start

Welcome 2015! I can think of no better time for a fresh start to this school year than today. For the rest of this school year it is my hope to create a a classroom culture of love, respect, and perseverance. It's my goal for students to meet all of our objectives, love what we are learning, respect each other, and to never give up in anything we do. This semester we are going to try and work harder at keeping a growth mindset. If you have never heard of a growth mindset it means students understand that intelligence can be developed. Students ( and teachers) focus on improvement instead of worrying about how smart they are. I'll admit and be honest- it's hard at times. But when we all obtain and keep this growth mindset, I see nothing but positivity and success flowing from us. Throughout the first few weeks back to school we are going to intentionally work at our growth mindsets. We are going to see our mistakes as ways to start new learning and challenge ourselves when we seem to be grasping ideas. I can't wait to get back and hit our feet running.

Watch the following video for a little growth mindset inspiration!

amous_Failures

Current Electricity

Last week students were given a copper wire, battery, light bulb, and some duck tape and were told to make the light bulb light up. After several tries and frustrations, students finally persevered through and all had a light bulb came on, in more than one way. Afterwards we discussed what a complete circuit needs and how the electricity moves throughout the circuit. Finally, we explored a phet simulation at  http://phet.colorado.edu/en/simulation/circuit-construction-kit-dc. 

Here are some student understandings so far in our study:

Zachary Pham
Sophia Roberts
Kettric Hill

Need Help with Fractions?

The past few weeks we have been working with fractions ( and will continue to!) The students truly are doing a phenomenal job at understanding the concepts of fractions. In math, we are always coming up with conjectures about what we are doing and trying to prove those conjectures to be always true, thus making generalizations. This past week I created a Padlet for students to share their conjectures/generalizations of fractions. You can access the padlet at this web address:

http://padlet.com/jones_k/y1f0es8ntgaj

Having trouble with math homework?
Check back at our padlet to help remember some things we have talked about!
Watch videos at Khan Academy or LearnZillion.com

Reading Responses via Thinglink

This week we learned how to use a new app called Thinglink. It allows you to upload a picture and attach little links to websites, text, or other pictures. We used the app to take place of our reading responses. In a reading response, students are asked to write a letter to me including lots of information about what they are reading. Some things I like them to include is the genre of the book, point of view, author, information about characters, a summary, their opinion of the book, and any thinking they had while reading. Click the following links to see some of our reading responses!

http://www.thinglink.com/scene/592059656155693058

http://www.thinglink.com/scene/592059439251456002

http://www.thinglink.com/scene/592052431043428354

http://www.thinglink.com/scene/592059702980902912

http://www.thinglink.com/scene/592437681925914624

http://www.thinglink.com/scene/592437392279863297

http://www.thinglink.com/scene/592059460948590594

http://www.thinglink.com/scene/592057195152015362

http://www.thinglink.com/scene/592054301656875008

http://www.thinglink.com/scene/592052861093806081

Feel free to ask any of the students questions about their books in comments below!

Thanks for reading!

Mrs. Jones

Division- area models and partial quotients

Lately in math we have been working on division. We have learned that in a division problem we know the total in the problem, but what we don't know is either the number of groups or the number in each group. By figuring out each of these pieces of information we can really make sense of the math and understand why we are dividing. Because of this it is essential to label our problems.

We learned how to use our knowledge of multiples of 10 to perform the algorithms of  partial quotients and area model to represent are division problems. Here are some public records created in class.