Math Work Published

Please head over to my Students’ Blog.  They have published the steps they have been using when performing any operation with fractions and mixed numbers.  They have the steps published in physical form (they have notecards with all of the steps on them), as well as in the digital form (as you will see in the blog posts).

Please critique the steps.  Perhaps we are not clear enough in our explanation.  Maybe the steps use words that not everyone knows.  Maybe you think those steps are just what you’ve been looking for and you can’t believe no one else ever put that online before!  Whatever the case – we’d appreciate the feedback.

Week of April 23rd, 2007

Two hour early release this Friday, April 27th.  Students are released at 12:50.

Social Studies - students are finishing general chronologies of the events leading up to the American Revolution.  Monday, students will be introduced to a song called The Rebels.  We will be interpreting the words of the song and comparing to the current war against terror.  Please ask your child about this correlation – it would be great to hear parent opinions!  Later in the week, students will be interpreting a stanza on their own and then reporting to the class what their stanza means in more modern English.

Math – Subtracting Fractions.  We did not get to create the multimedia projects intended last week, so hopefully this week will have a few extra moments.  The first half of the week will be work with subtracting fractions with unlike denominators and then subtracting fractions with renaming (“borrowing”).
If we are able to create some neat videos, I’ll have them posted at http://wjhs.wordpress.com and have a link from here to there.  That way parents can help students follow the procedure that I have outlined and help support students in learning fractions.

Social Skills – Students have been very motivated to create original videos in a commercial format to help boost the sales of the dog treats.  We will hopefully be using green screen technology to really spice up their work.  Students in the EBD program have collected $126.00 to date in the business!

Special Events this week – again, 2 hr early release Friday.

Playing with Photoshop

As if one Trevor wasn’t enough…

Student Reflections on Virginia Tech Tragedy

Please go to http://wjhs.wordpress.com to see my students’ reflections on the events yesterday at Virginia Tech.  We had a short discussion about what is more important: learning about history in the history books or keeping up with current events.  The short reflections are students’ 5-minute responses.

Week of April 16th, 2007

Our first full week back to the grindstone.

Social Studies – students will be delving more deeply into the American Revolution and it’s causes. 

Math – Students have created most of their notecards for the steps to all of the operations with fractions.  I am hoping to get them started in making a video that we can post online that will detail and give examples of solving fraction operations (plus, minus, multiply, divide).  However, we have to get through subtraction of fractions first.  If we do get around to making a video, that’ll be posted at http://wjhs.wordpress.com

Social Skills – we took in $36 over the past 2 weeks with the Washington Students Dog Treat Business.  Students came up with the idea of making a video to further promote the sale.  We have also been doing some role plays with “one-liners,” trying to break the ice and get peers to buy the treats.  Some of the great lines they came up with are: “Are you sick of recalled dog food?”  “Don’t you think puppies are cute?”  “What would you say if I told you that you could buy a bag of dog treats today that are both healthy and reasonably-priced?”  We had some fun coming up with those…  Students will be traveling to St. Mary’s Monday and Wednesday to continue production of the treats.

Special Events this week –

Officer Jansen’s birthday is Wednesday!

Week of April 9th, 2007

No school Monday and Tuesday – Spring Break.

 Social Studies – finishing up our wiki entry at http://malcore.wikispaces.com/socialstudies Please take a look and leave a comment in the “Discussion” section – we’d appreciate some feedback.  We have added student artwork now – so check it out!

This week, we will be taking the exit survey for our critical reading unit.  Hopefully students are reflective and honest in their self-assessment of their ability to critique print information. 

Math – continuing our fraction packet.  Students seem to have forgotten some things over the spring break, so this week we will be creating notecards of the steps involved in all of the operations with fractions (multiply, divide, add, subtract).

Social Skills  – no trip to St. Mary’s this week.  We are continuing our dog treat sales.

TREVOR!!! YOU ARE EINSTEIN