Wednesday + 6th grade homework

6th graders checked our plants and found them in a very wilted shriveled condition. We wrote down our information and will add it to our data. Students were given their books and we did a quick tour through them so students know where to find the information. Students were given a paper to fill out about their own growth and development. It is due tomorrow. They also need to bring their supplies for their characteristics of life poster for tomorrow.

7th graders learned about the different skills needed in science; observation, inferring, predicting, classifying and creating models. Then we watched a number of Youtubes. The first showed how Jane Goodall used the skills in science to learn about chimpanzees. Then we watched different people who had careers based on biology. I think students enjoyed the video game producer. They were surprised to learn that it took a good background in science, math, and the ability to communicate.

Tuesday August 30th

6th grade science learned about the 6 characteristics of life which include: All living things grow and develop, have cells, perform complex chemical activity, perform reproduction, have an information system (DNA) and respond to their environment. Students will be working as a team to make a poster to represent the six characteristics of life. We will work on the poster on Thursday. Students have Wednesday and Thursday to bring items, drawings or pictures to represent their assigned part.

We also reviewed the steps of the scientific method of doing and experiment. Then we discussed what happened to the plants we poured hot water on.

7th grade took their pre-test today. It was a little scary for them trying to recall things they learned last year. This is not a graded test, but something to allow the students to prepare of the year and ISATs.

August 29th

Welcome back to school. In 6th grade we wrote a hypothesis and then poured boiling water on a plant. Students are to check their plant before school tomorrow to see how it fared. In 7th grade we started growing a seed and then will conduct experiments on the seed.

Tomorrow both classes will take a pre-test to see how much they know. This is not graded, but for the 7th graders it will be a review. For the 6th graders it will give me direction as to what they need to know. It is a serious thing, just not life or death.