Week of 10/29/2018

Happy Monday Everyone, 

     I hope everyone is enjoying the cooler weather. I am enjoying the sound of my air conditioner not running all day long.

     On this Wednesday both classes will be having Fall Festivals. Please contact your classes room parents for information about times and needed supplies. Ms. Billiard and I are inviting students to wear there pirate outfits from the first day of school in honor of the occasion. Wednesday is also early release so please make sure your child knows how they are to get home. 

     On Monday's I take the students to the computer lab. I usually just assign i-Ready work for students. I know that students get bored with i-Ready since they are already using it for their homework each week. So sometimes I like to find other pieces of technology for us to work on in the lab. Today I assigned Brain Pop movies and quizzes. Many students were unable to complete this work in the lab because they either left their username and passwords at home, thought they had their username and passwords memorized or they never registered for their account. Students should have their usernames and passwords written down on a sticky note or piece of paper. I have advised students to put this in the bag with their headphones. At this point students should have a username and password for Brain Pop and Prodigy. They should also know how to access their science book online and how to get to our class page @ https://msjohnsonsclassrocks.blogspot.com. 

     As I sat down to grade last week's math quiz, I noticed that many students had calculation errors. So instead of grading their work I passed the quizzes back to students so that they could correct any mistakes. On tomorrow we will begin learning strategies for solving division problems. For division students will not be taught the long division algorithm. This skill has been moved to middle school. We will learn the area model for division, partial quotients, and multiplying up. Please see the examples below. 

Area Model for Division

Multiplying Up

Partial Quotients

     This week in science we will take a test on physical changes and chemical changes. Students were reminded to bring home their science books so that they could study tonight. Students will also complete labs were they will get to see some chemical changes in action. 

     We swapped lunch times with 3rd grade classes on last Friday to help them out with a scheduling glitch with their field trip to Sweet Pete's. Due to this change in our schedule we were not able to work on social studies. So we will cover both lesson 1 and lesson 2 in chapter 3 this week.