Thursday

Mrs. Bloxham came into the class today to teach the students about the dangers of drug abuse. The students talked about what addiction is. They also talked about healthy things they could do instead of drugs.

Wednesday

Today we made atoms. The students were to choose and atom, find out how many protons, neutrons and electrons were in each atom. Then, using pipe cleaners, beads, fruit loops and fishing line, they made atoms. We will be reviewing this process by drawing atoms to reinforce this concept. We also learned that the reason we feel solid things when atoms are mostly empty space is that the electrons from the atoms repel each other. Now that is an interesting scientific theory. Tomorrow Mrs. Bloxham will be presenting a lesson on drug abuse.

Monday and Tuesday

So sorry that there was no message for you yesterday, the school's Internet was down. We are learning about atoms. Yesterday and today we watched a power point presentation on atoms, discussed the parts of an atom and learned about different scientific theories concerning the atom. Science journals were finished and turned in today and wil be graded. These are notes and work that they do in class. Tomorrow we will be making an atom out of pipe cleaners, fruit loops, beads and fish line.

Thursday

Today the students took the drug survey - it is completely anonymous. We also learned about the S.I. unit called moles. We watched a You tube video called, "A Mole is a unit." We also reviewed our SI song on youtube called, "Something called SI" The students worked to finish their lab worksheets. There is homework,
E-15 1-5. The answers must be in complete sentences and are due on Monday.

Wednesday

After reviewing SI measurement units, we went into the lab and began meassuring volume, length, mass, and weight. The students worked in their teams, but each student was required to do their own measuring. We will continue using the metric system through the year so that the students become comfortable with it.

Tuesday

We started learning a new song today. I found it on Youtube under, "Something Called SI" It teaches the units used for measuring in the metric system. We attemped converting 64 meters into kilometers, hectometers, dekameters, decimeters, centimeters and millimeters. A lot of students had the right ideas, just did it backwards. We will continue to work on this. We watched a video clip about measuring accurately then we went to the lab and practiced finding mass using the triple balance scale. Tomorrow we will be doing a lab on measuring and weighing.

Monday January 5th

In Science today we got right to work remembering the prefixes in the metric system.We also reviewed the units used to measure weight, mass, temperature, volume, and time. We discussed the difference between mass and weight. Mass is how much matter an object has while weight deals with the gravitational pull between an object and the planet the object is on. Last we watched a short segment of Bill Nye the Science Guy on measuring.

Monday

We learned about the ear today and then took a hearing test on Youtube. It was interesting to see the different sounds that some students could and some could not. Then we measured our music chimes and then changed the centimeter measurement into millimeters and dekameters

Then we learned about sound as we used the chimes to play Christmas carols.

Tomorrow is a half day. The students will come at the regular time. We have the dance and a movie. School is out at 1:00.

We will see you on January 5th! Have a Merry Christmas!

Thursday

We viewed a power point presentation that reviewed chapter 9 lesson 1. We reviewed matter, mass volume, density, physical properties, physical changes, mixtures, solutes and solvents. We also learned about buoyancy.

Monday will be a regular school day. Tuesday dismissal will be at 1:00.

Wednesday

We learned more about the metric system today. We converted millimeters to centimeters and on to kilometers. Then we measured the hallway downstairs so we could visulize what a dekameter and half of a hectometer look like. We returned to the classroom and converted the measurements into centimeters and millimeters.

We determined the mass of a diet soda compared to a regular soda. The volume was the same but the mass was different. We concluded that the difference was that the sugar in the regular soda was heavier than the aspartame in the diet soda.

We started a power point presentation covering the chapter.

We will finish the power point tomorrow, finish drawing our biomes, our metric chart, and take home things that students have brought to show the other students.

Tuesday

Our classes were shortened today so our students could watch the High School play, "Oklahoma."

In Science we took notes concerning the experiments we did yesterday. The students were asked to describe the process for finding the volume of irregularly shaped objects. They were asked to define volume. Lastly they were asked how to find the volume of regularly shaped objects. We discussed the answers.

Last the students made a metric chart. From now till the end of the year we will be using metrics exclusively in the classroom.

Monday

We checked out out corn syrup egg today. On Thursday it weighed 52 grams after four days in the corn syrup. Today it weighed 95 after four days in water. That was the highest weight of any of the other eggs. We concluded that some of the sugar must have entered the egg.

We learned how to measure the volume of irregularly shaped objects. The students used a graduated beaker and water and then measured the volume of four or five different objects. We also measured some regularly shaped objects using the meter stick.

Students have a permission slip to return tomorrow. If it is back on Tuesday they will receive ten points of extra credit!!!!

Thursday

Today we ended our unit on Life Science and actually began our new unit on Physical Science. We weighed and measured our eggs and learned that the egg in the corn syrup lost liquid, the egg in the plain water gained liquid and the egg in the salt water was 5 grams heavier than the egg in the plain water. We ended up with the salt water egg weighing 91 grams, the plain water egg weighing 85-86 grams and the corn syrup egg weighing 52 grams. In 5th hour we placed the corn syrup egg back in water to see if the osmosis would work again, or if the egg was just too covered with corn syrup to allow osmosis to occur.

Then we started working on the metric system. We watched four short you tube videos, one funny one about the fear of the metric system and then the others introduced the students to measuring, how it came about and why metrics is so convenient.

The only homework would be if a student hadn't finished their reading on E1-E15.

Wednesday

The tests and essays were handed back today. We discussed the importance of accuracy in scientific writing. Students were reminded that spelling, handwriting and capitalization do matter. We also discussed the importance of doing your own work.

We observed our eggs today. The egg in the corn syrup is getting much smaller, while the eggs in the salt water and plain water continue to grow. Tomorrow we will weigh all three eggs to see if there is any difference. We used our rejuvenated celery stalk to compare to the eggs and learned a little more about osmosis.

We are starting the unit on Physical Science. Students should have read and be familiar with E1-E15.

Students can fix their tests. The fixed information must be on a clean sheet of paper and stapled to the test. All answers must be in complete sentences, legible and have correct spelling. Students can get half credit for every correct answer.

Tuesday

After observing and taking notes on our osmosis experiment, the students got right to their tests. They will take them home tomorrow. Any student who is not pleased with their grade will have the opportunity to make up the test at home. The students must follow specific instructions on how to redo the test. They will get half credit on each question they answer correctly.

Homework tonight is to read E1-E15.

Monday test tomorrow

We worked on our osmosis experiment today. The shells had come off of the eggs leaving them feeling like a water balloon. In 5th hour we covered one egg with water, one egg with corn syrup and one egg with salt water. We will observe the eggs for the rest of the week and see what happens to them.

The students reviewed for the test today. Each team received a test question and worked to come up with the answer. They would ask the question and allow the other classmates think before the team would give the answer. Only one or two questions were missed all day.

The test will be tomorrow. Any student who does poorly on the test will be allowed to make it up for half credit on each question answered correctly using the format I have taught them.

Thursday

Today we were supposed to do an experiment on osmosis. But we learned that when you microwave a stalk of celery, you damage the cells so much that you cannot do the experiment on osmosis. It still was interesting. We also began the steps for another experiment on osmosis. We are using vinegar to remove the shell from and egg. Then, on Monday, each student will make an hypothesis on what will happen to an egg surrounded only by a membrane, one put in water, the other put in corn syrup which has less water in it.

We also talked about the cell cycle and watched a short video showing the different stages of body cell division, mitosis.

Wednesday

In our first hour classes the students took the Direct Math Assessment. We reviewed the organelles in the cell by having each team find something to compare it to. For example, since the mitochondria make energy for the cell some students compared it to a wind turbine, a battery, or electricity. When this activity was finished students were asked to work on the drawing of the eight biomes.

The test will be Tuesday December 9th. It will cover all of the notes from November 10th till December 4th. It also includes the reading from B1-B70.

Tuesday

Our reports are done. Only two people didn't have them and one of them has been sick for two weeks. The students were a bit apprehensive about standing up and talking in front of the class, but they did fine. This is good practice for all of them.

Tomorrow are the direct math assessments for all of the 6th graders. Thursday we will be covering material from B49-B63. The test review will be Monday and Tuesday will be the test.

Monday and changes

Students who do not have a computer to type on at home were allowed to go to the computer lab and type their reports today. The rest of the class worked on their biome pictures.

Tomorrow the reports, written and oral, are due at the beginning of class. The students will make an oral presentation about their animal at that time. The oral report will be approximately two minutes long. Late reports will only be accepted from students who are absent from all of their classes on Tuesday. This report was assigned a month ago and so being absent today shouldn't disqualify anyone from having their report done on time.

The test will have to be moved to December 9th. The students have their direct math assessment on Wednesday. This will not allow us enough time to review for the test. We will review Monday and test Tuesday. The test covers cells, biomes, and the human body.