Mondayitis?

Today went by  pretty fast.....

Can you believe this time in two weeks we will be ready for state ELA Test???

• 1st - ELA Test Prep "What is Vermiculture?"   After reading the text and looking at the three questions, we moved to THE BFG and read "A Trogglehumper for the Fleshlumpeater".  We are almost 1/2 through with the class novel, but I don't think we will finish it before break.
• 2nd - Dance    The dance teacher said he still had problems with constantly being interrupted and having to stop misbehavior.
• 3rd - ReadyGen 3b.7 - Looking for descriptive adjectives that use the 5 sense was our focus.  We read pages 36-51 focusing on three infamous volcanic eruptions.  After working through the section and lesson, I passed out another text (front and back) about Vesuvius and we read that together so the kids had even more background on the volcano.  Finally, we watched an 8 minute reenactment of the eruption so they could see just how powerful and devastating the eruption was.  If you want to see it for yourself - click this link!
• 4th - After finishing ReadyGen and all the extra content, we were able (about half way in) to move into Math.  The students worked on the Chapter 8 Performance Task.  I helped them set up the problems on the digital camera, but they had to do the work on their own.  They seemed to be struggling but I didn't think that the problems were that difficult.  Maybe it was Mondayitis.  
• 5th - We decided to move into Chapter 9.  Chapter 9 is about understanding the connection between fractions and decimals.  With just a few weeks of instruction before the Math State Test, We will cover this and then move into some geometry right before the test.  After the ELA state test, we will be doing Math in the afternoons to get ready for the Math test!  So, we did the "Show What You Know" for Chapter 9.  We went over it.  Then we went over how to look at the fraction 1/10 and say ONE TENTH and then write it as 0.1   It was important for the students to look at the place value chart and realize that a decimal, just like a fraction, is part of the whole, so they come behind the ones on the place value chart.  Because they are not a whole number, they are a fraction of it, they are called decimals.  We looked at how money is described (1c is .01, 5c is .05, 10c is .10, and 25c is .25)  The first digit is tenths, and the second is hundredths.  It is easy to think of 100 pennies make up a dollar (parts of a whole).  Today was all about getting them to see the fraction  and then being able to write it as a decimal.  
• 6th - Lunch (No one got in trouble!!!)
• 7th - Math Test Prep (CATCH UP!)... we did like 4 to catch up from last week too!   We did the homework in class since they already had so much homework in math!   Then we did our 5th and final HIV Lesson.  The purpose of today's lesson was "Where do you go for more information?".   They have a handout they were told to share with you about places and people they could ask if they had more questions about HIV or any communicable disease.  

Homework:

• Reading - ELA Test Prep Questions 35-37
• Writing - Write a Who, What, When, Where, How, and Why question that you would ask an expert about the Mt. Vesuvius eruptions (using the text in the book and the handout as research).  Questions must require more than a yes or no response
• Math:
• Practice book 9.1 - identifying decimals in tenths
• Salamander Math Practice - Multiplying Fractions Sheet 1 and 2