Saturday School Dates

Class,

We will be having two Saturday Schools after spring break. One of them will be held on Saturday, March 22, 2014, and the other will be held on Saturday, April 5, 2014. Please make arrangements to be there, because we will go over many concepts thoroughly and rigorously. I will be sending out the letters here by the end of the week.

The Lorax is a great little cartoon movie, with a great message and lots of persuasive techniques in it. Watch it and see if you can find the persuasion techniques. The following are some of the techniques used:

1. Bandwagon strategy
2. The appeal strategy
3. Sentimental Strategy
4. Misleading Statements
5. Scarce Tactics

Tomorrow at a glance (December 11, 2013)

Class,

Tomorrow, we will be taking the Unit 5 Exam over Algebraic Representation. We have been on this unit now for about two weeks, and we are ready to be tested. Get a good nights rest, study your review, look over your notes if you have them, and be ready to go first thing in the morning. I will be printing out a clean STAAR chart for all of you, so I want to see you use it! All of you are going to do great on the exam, I just know it; you all have been doing so well on the practice assignments and quizzes. After the test, we are going to wind down and play Coordinate Siege or that other game we all know so well. Mr. Tirado's class may be coming to play with us.

We will be reading The Snake and the Chick out of the Measure Up book tomorrow also and going over the analogies. I also want to look over the Last ELA Exam we took and make corrections for a few points back. The class average on that test was about a 60%, and I know that we can do better.

Please keep in mind my little proposition to you all if all of you pass the Unit 5 Exam. It is a class effort, so let's do it!!

Next Week at a glance (November 18-22, 2013)

Class,

          This week will be the last week before the Thanksgiving Holidays, and we will be quite busy. In math, we will be be continuing our study of coordinate plane and discussing Algebraic Tables. I will be letting you guys do some really cool fun grids since we know how to grid now. If you guys know how to find consistent equivalent ratios, algebraic tables and writing the expressions should be a breeze, and just about the entire class did really well on the last exam.
          In English, we will be reading Chapters 8 - 10 in the 39 Clues Book. I am postponing the book exam until we come back from Thanksgiving and make the exam cover Chapters 1 - 10, and I will probably give that exam the Tuesday we come back (December 3, 2013). I will also be giving the Unit 2 ELA Exam on that Friday we come ( December 5, 2013), so we will have two exams for English that week.
          In Social Studies, we will continue to look at Russia, some of its culture and history, as well as the economy. We will also continue our exploration of Energy Resources. 

Tomorrow at a glance (November 15, 2013)

Class,

          I would just like to take a moment to say that I am proud of all of you. The Ratio/proportion exams went quite well. All of you showed your work, and it was evident by the good grades. Keep up the good work.

          Tomorrow, we will be doing Gridville. After today, and our first discussion over coordinate plane today, I am quite confident in the ability of each one of you to plot ordered pairs efficiently. We will be discussing how to plot fractions and decimals on the coordinate plane. This will help us when it comes time to do fun grids and Coordinate Siege.We will also be reading from Chapter 6 of our 39 Clues book, and we will be looking at Renewable and non-renewable resources in more detail.

Answer this question......(Homework Thursday November 14, 2013)

Here is the writing prompt:

We have seen from our Chernobyl video how dangerous nuclear waste can be. Write me a short essay telling me how nuclear waste and the production of nuclear energy can be harmful to the environment?

Tomorrow at a glance (November 7, 2013)

Class,

          Tomorrow, we will be getting into day 2 of our project. Remember to take your time on your work and check it thoroughly, because this is a big ticket assignment. We will also be getting into our Social Studies project and having our own little Renaissance in class. Bring your art ideas and be prepared to be creative...

39 Clues and Math homework for tomorrow (November 6, 2013)

          We will be reading Chapter 3 of the book 39 Clues. We will also be doing a chapter sketch over Chapter 3, and I will be having you all do a short write over how you would feel if you were in the same circumstances as Dan and Amy; what would you do? We will also be reading Chapter 4 on Friday.

         Tomorrow, for sure, we will be having homework for math; it will be some more long division that will have a remainder that you will turn into a decimal. I want all of you to get really good at long division, because solving proportions and unit rate depend on you being proficient at long division.

Tomorrow at a glance (October 23, 2013)

Class,

     Tomorrow, we will be reviewing for the Unit 3 Math Exam on Wednesday. I will be giving all of you a review sheet to work on in class of which we will go over after you are done. For all of you that return the review, I will give you some points on the test, so do it and bring it back on Thursday.

     We will also be doing an exam over The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe on Thursday as well. It will be over all seventeen chapters.

The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe Movie

The Noun Mobiles

Class,

The noun mobiles look absolutely great. They are nicely hung throughout the classroom, and I will be displaying the pictures of them on the blog. Tomorrow, we will be doing verb mobiles to hang up. Remember class, all the things we create and build serve as tools in class and should be used. The whole classroom is a toolbox that I encourage all of you to use every single day.

This week at a glance (September 23-27)

Class,

This week we will be continuing our study of GCF and LCM with lots of practice and homework every night over it. There will be a Quiz over GCF and LCM on Wednesday and we will begin covering Order of operation through next Tuesday (Exam 2 will be next week sometime).

In English/Reading/Writing, we will be reading Chapters 7 and 8 out of our book, and we will be finishing our Chapters 1-5 Comic Strip Project......this is a MAJOR GRADE everyone, so take it seriously and make sure you get it done in class by Wednesday, we have had a week. We will begin Unit 2 on Wednesday and take Unit 1 Exam on Thursday, so you need to study all the poetry items I have given you which includes all the notes and vocabulary. There will also be a Spelling Test on Friday, and the words will be given to you on Monday.

In Science, we will be continuing with density, and we will be having a flipped video lab involving a density tower. Be prepared to be on your best behavior for this lab, I had to cancel labs for the rest of the year last January because of misbehaving and I do not want to have to do that again. We will watch a Bill Nye video over Density on Wednesday and have the Unit 1/2 Exam Friday. We will begin Unit 3 on Monday September 30th.

In Social Studies, we will be reviewing the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the form of government in the U.S. I am going to try to get a game of review Bingo going on Tuesday and the Unit 2 Exam on Wednesday. The rest of the week, we will get into Unit 3 and Middle America.

Be prepared for the week, things have changed since I saw you on Friday. Be prepared for"Monday."
I look forward to seeing all of you. Have a great rest of the weekend.

Tomorrow at a glance (Friday, September 20, 2013)

Class,

Tomorrow, we will be having a short density lab in class. Along with the lab, you will be writing a short essay over density, how to find density, and why density is an important concept to learn.

In math, we will also be covering LCM (Least Common Multiple) and reviewing over the GCF(Greatest Common Factor). I will be sending home a practice exercise which involves multiplication for homework.

In English, we will be reading Chapter 6 in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, and we will be working on our comic strip project for about 30-45 minutes. I will be giving you the chapter 6 sketches in class to do before we work on the comic strip. The Chapter 6 Summary will be given for homework. Remember it only has to be about a paragraph and a half.

For Social Studies, I will be giving you a note page with all 10 Bill of Rights for you to keep in your notebook. Look over Amendments 5, 6, and 7 and be ready for the trial that is on Monday.

Chapter 5 Sketch and summary Homework(Wed. September 18, 2013)

Class,

You will be doing the Chapter 5 Sketch for The Lion, The witch, and The Wardrobe tonight along with the Chapter 5 summary.  Both assignments will be due Thursday, September 19, 2013.

NO EXCUSES!!!!  NO EXCEPTIONS!!!

Chapter Sketch for Chapter 5 (The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe) and Math Homework

Class,

We are going to change things up here a little homework-wise.  Now we will be reading Chapter 5 on Wednesday, but you will be doing the chapter sketch and the chapter summary for homework. We will be doing a comic strip for Chapters 1-5 in class on Wednesday. This will be due on Thursday.

I will also be giving you some homework practice over factorization and prime factorization/factor trees  Tomorrow(Tuesday, September 17, 2013). This math will be due on Wednesday.....NO EXCEPTIONS!!!

Haikus

Watch this video over Haikus. I would also like to practice writing a couple of haikus this week.

Sonnets

Watch this video over sonnets. It is very helpful in understanding how to write them. I would like to practice writing one sonnet this week.

Chapter 3 Summary (The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe)

For homework tonight, you will be summarizing Chapter 3 of The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe. It will be due on Monday September 16, 2013. Don't be late turning it in!!!

Chapter 2 Summary

Class,

The homework here involves you writing a paragraph and a half summarizing the second chapter of The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe. This assignment is due tomorrow, Thursday, September 12, 2013.

Chapter 1 Summary (The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe) [Homework September 9, 2013]

Please give me a two paragraph summary about Chapter 1.  I want each paragraph indented with correct punctuation and spelling.