My sincere apologies.  I wish I’d been able to keep this fully up to date, but there were a couple of weeks when technical problems and just plain busyness got the better of me. This post will be a general update of what students did in science during the gap in communications.

Grades 3 & 4

We have been studying insects and working on our Bug Books.  Some parts of this project were done as a whole group, some parts in small groups and some parts were completely individual.  The final product is due on January 19th, 2010, turned in to homeroom teachers so that we can put it with your portfolios.

Assignment: Bug Book

Due Date: 1/19/10

Grades 5 & 6

While we spent some time in November and December on cells – what are they, what are they made of, how do they work? We also looked at identifying living things using dichotomous keys and we practiced with jellybeans – identifying the flavors based on color patterns- and on simple drawings of imaginary beings, but these kinds of keys are used all the time in the identification of different types of plants and animals that are actually a part of our world. In December we moved on to studying the scientific method in general, and how to write scientific questions, procedures, and hypotheses.  We will be focusing for at least the next month on scientific methods, and we are leading up to science fair projects.

Grades 3 & 4

Last week we looked at honeybees, and today we continued our study of insects by studying cricket behavior today. Students observed crickets and over a 3 minute period, we studied what the crickets spent most of their time doing.  Before we started watching the crickets, kids predicted that they would be jumping and singing, but most of the time the crickets just found a dark corner and sat.  I introduced a project we will be doing between now and the Winter Break called the “Big Bug Book” where your kids will be putting together a book about insects, arachnids and other “bugs”.  This includes illustrations and a little bit of text.

Assignments: Cricket Observations, introduced the “Big Bug Book”

Grades 5 & 6

Because of the 4th and 5th grade field trip on Wednesday, our class was cut a bit short this week, but we did an introduction to cells with a focus on getting an idea of what the parts of a cell are and what they do.  We won’t be spending a lot of time with this, but it’s useful to have a general idea of what cells are when talk about the differences between plants, animals, bacteria, fungi, etc.

Assignment: Your school as a Cell, Organelle interview

Grades 7 & 8

Many 7th and 8th grade students still owe me lab write-ups for the baggie garden experiment or plant life cycle posters.  These must be in by 11/25 in order to count, as I have to start doing grades, and these are a part of the grading process.  This week we were going into more depth about cells, examining our jello cells, drawing cell pictures, taking notes, comparing the cell to a factory, etc.  We also started eggs soaking in vinegar to remove the shells while keeping the membrane intact.  We will use these next week for experiments on osmosis and diffusion.  We also started learning the parts of a microscope for a more detailed microscope lab next week.

Assignments: Cell as a Factory, Vinegar eggs, (overdue) Baggie Garden Write-up, (overdue) Plant Life Cycle Poster.

Grades  7 & 8

This week the focus was on cells – we drew diagrams of cells, and made model cells from jello and various candies.  Students took notes on the functions of different structures within the cells.  In this coming week, we will look at some of the crucial processes that make cells work, such as osmosis, and we will examine various cells under the microscope.

Assignments: Cell Diagrams & Notes, Jell-O cell model

Grades 5 & 6

We only met once this week, and it was a short class, but we introduced the idea of cells – what are they, what do they do for living things, and watched several BrainPOP movies about cell structures.

Assignments: Exit Ticket on Cells

Grades 3 &4

Students read about bees, and worked on questions about how bees make honey.  If they didn’t finish the bee packet in class, they were supposed to take it home and finish it for homework.

Assignments: Bee Packet

Grades 7 & 8 Science:

We’re working on learning the structures and functions of cells.  On Monday we had a discussion about what we already know about Cells, and Tuesday we devoted some time to finishing up assignments that were due the previous week, as well as beginning to study the different cellular functions.

Assignments: Turn in Life Cycle of a Plant, and Lab Write-Up.

Grade 5 & 6 Science:

We finished plant life cycles Wednesday, and students turned in labeled drawings of a plant life cycle. We also spent some time working on observations by observing the larval crayfish that came from my crayfish pair.

Assignments: Life Cycle of flowering plants – labeled drawings, crayfish observations.

Grades 3 & 4 Science

Thursday 11/5 we spent some time reading about hydroponics and how they can be used to grow plants on a space station, and we practiced making observations of the larval crayfish.

Assignments: Observations of crayfish

This week has been a bit disrupted in schedule because of a variety of factors, so bear with the numerous changes:

7th grade Math

Monday and Tuesday we worked on solving proportions, and followed the learning contract pretty closely.  Wednesday the Journey group as a whole took this time to work on cards for Josh.  Thursday and Friday I switched the lessons to do two lessons on the use of Microsoft Excel with all students grades 6-8 in preparation for market day.  We created spread sheets and learned to enter formulas in excel for keeping track of market day money, and we also learned to make bar graphs and pie charts from categorical and numerical data.

Assignments: Market Day Excel spreadsheet, excel graphs, Monday and Tuesday’s contract work.

8th Grade Math

This was similar to the 7th grade math in that Monday and Tuesday followed the contract, while Wednesday through Friday was a departure.  The students did an assessment on Monday and Tuesday, and the results suggested to me that we need to go back over some of the Thinking with Mathematical Models concepts and retest, as most students had trouble with some of the same concepts. In particular, students need extra practice solving equations for a variable and finding the equations of a line. We’ll be practicing it in class, and in the homework, but if you get some extra time I highly recommend the following activities, puzzles or games:

• Algebra vs. the cockroaches (students have to find the equation of a line in order to hit the cockroaches that are trying to take over, it’s kinda fun, but I wouldn’t expect students to do more than first couple of levels at 8th grade)
• Balance problems
• Balance Problems with Negatives
• Algebra Games site

Assignments: Market Day Excel spreadsheet, excel graphs, TWMM Unit Test.

7th Grade Math

We are focused this week on unit rates (miles per hour, miles per gallon, dollars per CD’s, etc) and beginning dimensional analysis.

Assignments: See Learning Contracts Due 11/2

8th Grade Math

We spent this week reviewing the Thinking with Mathematical Models unit, where we looked at linear models of data, and inverse variations (which are related to hyperbolas, for you math whizzes out there).  The Unit Test will be 11/2

Assignments: See Learning Contracts Due 11/2

3-4 Science

In honor of the Harvest Festival and of our trick-or-treaters this week, we looked at pumpkins, practicing observational skills, and drawing, and counting the seeds in a pumpkin.  We spent some time discussing why pumpkins need so many seeds, and then took a side trip into a discussion of the origins of chocolate, since we were studying seeds and chocolate is one of our foods that comes from seeds.  Most students also finished their books on “How plants grow.”

Assignments: “How Do Plants Grow” and Pumpkin observations

5-6 Science

This week we really focused on understanding the life cycle of flowering plants, and we looked at videos & websites, took notes, and drew life cycles to try to get students to really understand the process by which a seed becomes a plant, and then moves on to create new seeds and reproduce itself.  We also wrote conclusions for the Baggie Garden Experiment.

Assignments: Life Cycle notes, Flowering Plant Life Cycle Poster, Baggie Garden Conclusion (all in class)

7-8 Science

Like the 5-6 Class, we focused on life cycles, and while we had some focus on flowering plants, we also spent a fair amount of time discussing conifers, and students are researching the life cycles of other types of plants for their life cycle posters.  We also spent a good chunk of class time working on the Lab Write-up for the Baggie Garden Lab, which should have been turned in Friday Morning.

Assignments: Life Cycle Notes, Life Cycle Poster (Due 11/3- Update: Due 11/6), Baggie Garden Lab-Write-up (Due 10/30- update: Due 11/4)

General Journey

This week we wrote riddles with Rachel in our WITS program.  Ask your student if they remember their riddle.  We also began a collaboration with Wendy Borton and Ann Gelsigger from the DAR, to study the transcontinental railroads.  Ann and I dressed in 1860’s costume, including hoop skirts, while Wendy portrayed a railroad engineer.  We started making maps of the US in 1860, and taking notes on the Transcontinental Railroad.

Sorry about the lateness of this update, it’s been a busy couple of weeks.

Week of 10/19/09

3-4 Science

This week we viewed videos and websites about the life cycle of plants, and made mini-books about how plants grow using illustrations that were provided.  We studied all the different ways that seeds get scattered, and how seeds form in the first place.

Assignment: “How Do Plants Grow” Mini-Book (started in class,  to be finished 10/29)

5-6 Science

We collected data from the baggie garden experiments we set up last week and made a data table, and we talked about the different parts of plants.

Assignment: Data collection & Data Table (Due in class)

7-8 Science

We collected data from the baggie garden experiments and started a lab write up, we also did some reading about the parts of a plant.

Assignment: Lab Write-up (Due 10/30/09, part in class, part for homework)

7th Grade Math

We are still working in the book Comparing and Scaling, and are focusing this week on finishing up ratios and starting unit rates.

Assignments: See weekly contract

8th Grade Math

We worked this week on inverse variations in the book Thinking with Mathematical Models. This is the last section of this book, and we will be reviewing next week and having our unit test on 11/2 & 11/3

Journey General

We had our first session with Rachel Kessler, our WITS (Writers in The Schools) writer in residence.  We worked on self-portrait poems this week.

At all grade levels (3-8) we’ve been studying plants.  Today in 3rd and 4th grade we looked at some really neat websites on the life cycle of plants, and watched one very cool video about plant lifecycles.

• Interactive website about the life cycles of plants
• Information and a game about plant life cycles
• Video made by kids about the life cycle of plants

I will break this down by the groups/subjects it applies to, and I apologize for the lateness of this update:

Math 7th Grade

We are working on the Comparing & Scaling book, and are nearing the end of investigation 2, which is the last section primarily on Ratios.  The weekly contract went out with the students, as did a handout on the Scale Drawing Project.  This project includes a choice, where students need to do one of 3 possible projects involving the scaling of drawings.  Friday there was a quiz, which was the second quiz of this investigation.

Assignments: See weekly contract, and Scale Drawing Project Due 10/23

Learning Targets: Students should have a good understanding of ratios and of comparing numbers using fractions, decimals , and percents.  They are developing skills in proportional reasoning, and this is crucial both for understanding numbers and for their later work in Algebra.

Math 8th Grade

Eighth graders are working in the book Thinking with Mathematical Models and the focus thus far has been a review of linear equations, and understanding real-life situations that can be modeled with linear equations.  They have finished investigation 2, and should, at this point, be able to write an equation for a real-life linear relationship, and make sense of what the various numbers in the equation mean.

Assignments: See weekly Contract

Learning Targets: Students will be able to use linear equations to model things that have linear relationships, and will be able to solve those equations for variables.

Science 7/8 and Science 5/6

Students have read about different parts of plants and their functions, and identified them on a diagram, and then planned and started the first experiment of the year that will lead to a full lab write-up.  They are studying plant biology, and their project involves adding substances to Baggie Gardens to see what the effect of these substances is on plant growth.  Students made hypotheses, and set up their experiments, and this coming week they will collect data and work on their first lab write-up.  Students have also planted a variety of different types of seeds in soil and will describe them as they come up.

Assignment: Plant Parts Reading & Questions w/ Plant Diagram labels, Experiment plan for Baggie Gardens

Learning Targets: Students will understand what the different parts of a plant are and what their functions are, and they will also understand the part of a scientific investigation where they choose variables and ask a testable question.

Science 3/4

Students have sprouted several different varieties of seeds, and have described their changes as they sprouted.  They have also discovered what is inside of a bean and what it can turn into.  We are growing a small hydroponic garden with sunflowers, peas, corn and bush beans, and will start soon with our study of crayfish.  Some important vocabulary includes: germination, nutrient, mold, spores, life cycle.

Assignments: Descriptions of seeds at different stages of germination

Learning Targets: Students will understand what seeds are and their origin, and will be ale to relate seeds with the different stages of life cycles of the plants that grow from them.

General Journey Classes

Spanish PowerPoint projects should be complete – students did a powerpoint on a famous Hispanic person – and most have presented their projects.  Students should have completed and turned in a cartoon based on either the Read-Aloud book, Hoot, by Carl Hiassen or a book they are reading on their own, and every student should have an appropriate silent reading book at their grade level.  Students should have given me “Where I’m From” poems and 5-Paragraph Essays on their educational goals several weeks ago.  The Goals essay in particular is a crucial assignment as it is a “baseline” writing assessment for the beginning of the year, which will allow me to see student writing growth as the year goes on.  Monday 10/19 we will be starting with our Writer-in-Residence from the Writers in the Schools Program, and the following Tuesday 10/27 we will be starting our Journey American history project on the transcontinental railroads.

The science of classifying Living things is called Taxonomy, and it’s crucial for scientists who want to discuss a living thing.

The following are some links to sites with useful information to answer the questions you’ve been given.

• Introducing Classification – This site introduces the history of classification, and the kingdoms.  This is a great place to answer questions about who developed classification systems, and what they mean.
• Classification Practice – This site has a flash game that asks you to use information about an organism to figure out its classification under the traditional system.
• Six Kingdoms – This site will give you information about the characteristics of living things in each of 6 kingdoms.
• Traits of Life - What do living things have in common?  What are their differences?  What are the Traits of Life?  Find out using this resource from the Exploratorium