Week of December 9 - 13, 2013

Thursday HW
1.  MMS pages 70-71.  Today's lesson focused on the difference in appearance and function of line graphs as compared to the other styles we've looked at previously (Bar, circle and pictograph).  The major difference is that line graphs show changes over time and connections between data items, while bar graphs compare data visually  and sort data by category well.  We also spent some time introducing the vocabulary terms "axis" and "axes" and discussing the compression mark one can use on the vertical axis scale.
2.  Book Club reading -- 25 minutes.
3.  Toy and Food Drive items.
4.  Library period tomorrow.  Please return overdue items or settle accounts for lost books with Mr. Lisi.

Wednesday HW
1.  MMS pages 68-69.  We walked through a bar graph building activity today.  We also introduced the idea of an "interval":  a grouping of data into 5 or six equally spaced groups when there are too many data items to graph easily in one graph.
2.  Book Club reading:  25 minutes.  I am encouraged by the comments from the students (such as "This is the best book ever"; "It's really good"; "I really like it").
3.  Toy and food drive items.  We have 112 items so far.  If each student brought in five items each we would reach our goal of 155 pieces.  Thank you very much for your efforts so far!
4.  Library period on Friday.  Please return overdue items or settle accounts for lost books.

Tuesday HW
We had sixteen students stay for homework Club on Monday night -- a new record!
1.  Spelling Text work from today on pages 46 to 49.  Specific questions were written on the board.
2.  MMS pages 66-67.  We discussed the ideas of "Range" and "Balance Point" today in our inquiry into the concepts of Mean and Mode.  Students can practice finding averages at home in a variety of ways (list high temperatures for a week and then find the seven day high average) for extra home practice.
3.  Toy/Food Drive.  We have 103 items and one toy to date.  Thank you class!
4.  Human Illness research.  Students had opportunities in small groups to use the BioDigital human application on the smart board today.  These visits will be ongoing.  Students are also sorting their information into Inquiry organizers using the questions on the topic sheet as a guide.
5.  Students selected novels for Book Club today.  The activity involves students reading a novel with a group of peers.  We hope to finish the book during DEAR times in class and at home before the Christmas break arrives.  After the holiday students will gather in small groups and each will read aloud his/her favourite section.  This should be a portion of about a page that really made an impression on him/her. Afterwards the student will discuss why that section was chosen, giving compelling reasons.  There is no written work required for this assignment.  It is an oral presentation (about five minutes total between reading aloud and talking about it) geared towards students who like to read but who may be reluctant writers. The goal is not to make this a holiday assignment.  Students should have plenty of time to read the novel before the holidays start.


Monday HW
1.  Test tomorrow on Geometry Unit 3:  Triangles, Angles and Polygons.
2.  MMS Pages 64-65.
3.  Toy/Food drive items.  Another 34 items came in today.  Well done kids!
4.  Information on your Human Illness for the Science report.

Science!  MIT researcher devises "toughest" tongue twister ever.
Say this ten times fast: "pad kid poured curd pulled cod".
(http://www.bostonmagazine.com/news/blog/2013/12/05/mit-tongue-twister-trickiest-to-say/)