Wednesday

Today, amid the interruptions of ISATs, we corrected the test. Tomorrow we will begin on invertebrates and vertebrates. The students will be bringing home a paper explaining the animal report that will be due May 15. The students will have a paper, a poster, and a 2-3 minute presentation on their animal. Students will be given an order, then will be free to choose and animal in that order. This way we can cover a larger number of invertebrates and vertebrates.

Return tests on Wednesday

The students had an open book, open note test today. They will be allowed to take it home and finish it there. Their notes contain everything that is on the test. They were given opportunities to copy and re-copy the notes. Please make sure the test is turned in tomorrow at the beginning of class.

Monday ISATS

Most of the 6th grade spent the morning taking the ISAT Math tests. Tomorrow will be the Science Test/Worksheet. The students will be allowed to use their notes and books to take the test. They also will be allowed to take it home, but it must be back Wednesday morning as we will be correcting it on Wednesday.

Make sure everyone gets a good night's sleep and has a good breakfast so they are better prepared for the testing. Tuesday is reading, 6th graders take theirs after lunch. Wednesday is language arts and the 6th graders will take those about 10:15.

Thursday - open book test Tuesday

We covered plant reproduction today, both with flowers and mosses. The students drew both the moss and the flower reproduction so they would have it in their notes for the test. Then the students drew the three examples of a monocot and the three examples of a dicot. They drew the vascular structure of the plant, the xylem and phloem, and they wrote down the seven classifications of the kingdoms. Next we watched a couple of short clips showing bees pollinating flowers. The students enjoyed the part of the bee cleaning the pollen off of his body and pushing it down to his legs while he held onto the flower with just one arm. It was fun to watch.

Wednesday

We watched some interesting video clips today. We watched a protist eat algae, we watched a flagella dance and a stentor using its cilia to pull in his food. We also watched a fun rap on Bacteria. Then we watched a news clip on bacteria on cell phones. It was enlightening, I immediately cleaned my cell phone. Some of the students got to see kefir bacteria. Then we went to the power point presentation about the five kingdoms, the characteristics of each, and pictures. We saw a mushroom about four feet tall and discussed the good and bad of both fungus and bacteria.

Report cards were handed out today. The students were told that if they want to bring up their grades they must turn in their work. A few students haven't learned that concept yet. It would be a good idea for parents to check their student's grades online to see what is going on.

Change test day

Next week are the ISAT tests so that kills our test. Instead we will have a take home worksheet. The students will have some time to work on it during class, but they will also be allowed to take it home. It might be a bit more difficult than a test since they will be allowed to use their books and notes, but it will allow them to review the information they have learned in this section. That way we can move forward and finish before the school year ends.

Today we covered the five kingdom of organisms. Animal, plant, bacteria, fungus and protist. We talked about their individual characteristics and took notes on the different organisms from each kingdom. The students were curious - what category is a tick, or a maggot, or a pill bug. We looked those things up and they learned a little more.

Monday

Today we took notes and I discussed each student's grade with them. These are mid-terms so the students do have time to improve. But it takes work on their part.

We used the microscope from AJ and looked at pollen grains, roots, monocot stems and buds. It was interesting to see the screen and see what the parts of the plants actually look like.

Later we reviewed monocots, dicots, phloem and xylem.

The test on A1-A34 will be Tuesday April 29th.

Thursday

Today we watched a Plato lesson on the Plant Kingdom. It discussed the four main divisions of plants, which plants were in each division, the life cycle of each division, and the benefits of each division. We discussed dicots and monocots, xylem and phloem, and pollinization and fertilization. The students filled out a chart so they will be able to compare the different plant divisions.

We are hoping to borrow some microscopes from AJ so we can look more closely at the parts of the plant on Monday. Reading will be to the end of the unit, to D80. Also students need to get the final draft of their weed essays in as soon as possible. They are officially due on Monday, but since some students don't have access to a computer at home, we are allowing them to work on the essays during SSR on Monday and Tuesday. Any that can be turned in on Monday would be appreciated so that I can get them read, and the five best ones turned in by the deadline of April 23rd.

Picture money or pictures are now past due.

Wednesday

I was gone yesterday to take my son as he joined the Air Force. The students watched a movie on seed dispersion, sounds like they did well and learned a lot.

Today, thanks to the trip to Salt Lake, we looked at leaves and moss through a magnifying glass. We discussed the difference between vascular and non-vascular plants and then traced over the vascular plant and drew the moss. We also discussed angiosperms and gymnosperms. Those four words will definitely be on the test. Tomorrow students should have the reading done as we discuss plant reproduction.

Picture money is late! If the pictures have not been turned in, the money needs to be turned in.

Monday

We had an interesting time learning to classify things today. First we put books into different categories and then we took shoes and practiced classifying them. We learned a little ditty to help us remember the order of classification of animals: King Phillip came over from Germany singing, thanks to Mr. Heinzman for that. The words are Kingdom - Phylum - Class - Order - Family - Genus - species. Then we watched a ppp to show the different Kingodoms. It does along with their reading.

I will be gone tomorrow so the students will be watching a movie about seeds. There will be a "pay attention" worksheet to help them focus on the important parts of the film.

The weeds rough draft is due March 16th. Students who need to type at school will be allowed to do that during SSR time. But the rough draft only needs to be typed if they want to do that. The final draft must be in on the 21st of April.

The students should begin reading A20-A34.

Thursday

The students have their tests and can return them Monday at the beginning of class with a new sheet of paper and complete sentences fixing their mistakes.

Today we started the outline and rough draft for our essay on weeds. The students will write a five paragraph essay about the four weeds discussed in class, the essay title is, "How We Can Pull Together To Stop Noxious Weeds." The rought draft and outline are due by (before is good too) April 16th. The final draft is due
April 21st.

Have a great weekend.

The test is done

The tests will be returned tomorrow. All students will have the opportunity of taking the test home, and on a separate piece of paper, correct any incorrect answers. They will get half of the points. The answers must be written in complete sentences, not just A or G. This is required to help the student learn the thing they didn't do well on. This will be due on Monday at the beginning of class - late papers will not be accepted unless a student is absent. Those papers are due at the beginning of class when the student returns. They are allowed to use their books and notes to get the correct answers.

We have moved on to the biology section of the book. Homework is to start reading A1-A19. There are a lot of pictures in this section so the reading should go fast. The reading should be done by Monday.

Tomorrow we will be working on our weed essay. Students need to bring the weed books that were handed out to the students on Monday.

Tuesday - prepare for Wednesday's test!!!!!

We had a review today. We played jeopardy. I put all of the answers on a transparency and the students had to come up with the questions. One point for the right answer and another point if they made a basket. It was fun. They all know there is a test tomorrow, we have reviewed the test items many times. I hope they get done what they need to do to prepare.

For test things to study, see yesterday's blog. Study hard, cause luck doesn't help.
D45-D93 would be good pages to study. If it is to be, it is up to me.

Students need to bring the weed books they received on Monday to class. We are going to begin the weed essay on Thursday.

Monday - test Wednesday

After taking our notes today we talked about the importance of taking care of each other. We talked about how unkindnes, drugs and drink can negatively affect people and that we all need to help someone that might be unhappy.

Then we discussed the Geologic Times. We learned about original horizontality and superposition of rocks. We discussed fossils and index fossils. We saw pictures of the Precambrian time and the three eras and what the defining features were of the different eras. Photosynthesis was discussed and how it helped get oxygen on the Earth.

The students had a meeting with Mr. Transtrum about how weeds are endangering our state. The students will have the opportunity to write a five paragraph essay about weeds and maybe even win a cash prize.

Test on Wednesday. It will include:
The types of mountains and which are most common
Mechanical and chemical weathering
The difference between minerals and rocks
The properties of rocks
Intrusive and extrusive igneous rocks
Glaciers, till, moraine, drumlin
Old and young rivers
Superposition
The difference between potential and kinetic energy (that is from January)
Metamorphic, igneous and sedimentary rocks
Fossils
The Great Lakes formation
Four states of matter
Groundwater, aqifer, watershed, soil
Name the poles of a magnet
Draw and atom
And, as always, write the definition of a hypothesis

Hope this helps!

Thursday

We took notes this morning and then reviewed them. A few girls had brought in some very interesting rocks and we took a little time to look at those. We talked about the geological time zones and then watched a segment from Plato to re-emphasize what happened in those time zones. Lastly we looked at two sites on the Internet. One was a video showing two men who were digging fossils in China. The web site is http://multimedia.boston.com/pub/m/18845932/china_s_fantastic_fossils.htm?pageid=130
After that we went to a site that showed close ups of the fossils. The site for that is http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/microraptor/fossils.html. Just go to the "launch interactive" and there are thirteen pictures of the fossils found in China.

Wednesday should be the test on D45-D92.

Wednesday and Geodes

After watching a Power Point Presentation on the rock cycle, we went into the lab and cracked open geodes. It was fun seeing the crystals inside of them. We reviewed the different types of rocks in our rock box and learned what kinds of rocks they were, igneous, sedimentary, or metamorphic. We put a piece of chalk in acid and watched as it bubbled and then we looked at a wide array of rocks and talked about what kind of rocks they might be.

The reading assignment is now to finish the chapter. I am hoping we will be ready for a test on Wednesday the 9th of April.

Tuesday and rocks

The students took a quiz on the reading and lesson from yesterday. Following the quiz they took notes on Igneous rocks. We then went into the lab and each team tried to find different ways to classify the rock samples. When they were done we talked about the different rock properties, hardness, luster, streak, texture, structure, cleavage and fracture, specific gravity and unusual properties such as magnetism and fizzing when placed in an acid.

Tomorrow we will watch a ppp on the rock cycle and work more with the rock samples. To view the rock cycle click on the rock cycle link and then click on rock cycle overview.