literacy
- identify nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives, introductory phrases, and prepositional phrases
- name at least 4 common prepositions that start prepositional phrases
- explain the definition and/or purpose of nouns, verbs, and adjectives
- explain what you can do with a prepositional phrase
- write a paragraph with a topic and concluding sentence in which the concluding sentence adds a little extra emphasis or a twist
- write with longer sentences involving introductory phrases that specify when or where (ex: Last weekend at the party, . . )
- reread to revise by adding words that help clarify the story or text
- change words back and forth from singular to plural with proper spelling (ex: funny - funniest)
- read with at least 3 word phrases like natural speech with voice inflection
- create words that tell you "a person - who studies" using the meaning of the roots (ex: magnetologist - a person who (-ist) studies (log) magnets
- generate at least 10 positive adjectives to describe a person in a Bubble Map
math
- tell you the range between numbers
- identify even or odd
- decompose any number into the expanded form (ex: 45,205 = 40,000 + 5,000 + 200+5)
- tell you what a prime number is and give some examples
- round a number to the nearest 10, 100, 1,000
- mental math for ten times a number
- half of a number and double a number
- count by 3's fluently to 30
- for any number - prove with evidence (equations) if a number is divisible by 2, 3, 4, 5, or 10
- tell you the divisibility rules for 2, 5, and 10
** most (not delineated by grade level but by math understanding and growth):
- divide a number by 3 showing the exact steps in the traditional format
- change remainders in a quotient (division answer) to fractions
- change fractions of 1/4 to decimals using money concepts
- tell you the divisibility rules for 3 (add the digits and see if the sum is divisible by 3)
- tell you the divisibility rules for 4 (look at only the last 2 digits of any number - if divisible by 4 - then the entire number is divisible by 4
Incredibly fun math challenge of today that a large group understood after examples and deductive reasoning were used to discover rather than directly taught:
- proving the math genius' theory in a TED talk I saw was correct - how to make any large prime number
- numbers taken to powers (analogy to extra lives on video games :) ) - exponents
- calculating exponents
ex: We calculated 2 to the 17th power today by doubling our way up. When the numbers got into the thousands, we decomposed and doubled each portion of the expanded notation. They were amazed when it worked! They created a huge prime number! :)
Why? They are begging for the math genius TED talk I mentioned but were told they were not ready to see it. They wanted to prove me wrong - and did. :)
What a fantastic job you are doing of making sure your child really does the flipped classroom even when there is no documentation requirement. Watching the videos is critical at this point. A great deal of time is spent strategically selecting every single one to launch learning through independent learning and discovery via the multimedia approach. Most children came in today ready to become chemists. First, we had to know the basic elements. Most were very prepared and proceeded to teach me the symbols they already knew. Hooray! Thank you! That's the whole point - for your children to become the teachers. If they can teach a concept, then they can provide evidence of higher level thinking and understanding. They did just that today then it was extended. We learned how elements combine to form chemicals and how chemical equations represent those combinations. They begged me to take a photo of what they learned since they knew it was amazing. I did, but it will not be posted due to my sloppy writing. :) Below is a list of what we brainstormed then learned to see how much your child understood from the discussion:
- symbols for the following elements: hydrogen, oxygen, helium, sulfur, carbon, nitrogen, iron,
- name the elements for the following symbols: He, N, C, O, H, S, Fe, N, and our favorite - Au
- tell you how to remember the symbol for gold
- explain the difference between CO2 (can't make it in proper form- carbon dioxide) and CO (carbon monoxide) - tied in prefixes: bi/di= two and mono=one
- finish a chemical equation such as CO2= . . .
- salt = NaCl
- water = H2O
After that, your child was a real chemist complete with the tools of chemistry thanks to some amazing parents in our room: pipettes, test tubes, and safety glasses. Your child investigated liquids and solids to clean pennies solidifying the home-school connection. They built upon what they did at home by trying new liquids and solids. There were two investigation tables - solids and liquids. Your child measured 10ml of a liquid, created a container for examination, added a penny, and organized everything for him/herself. At the "solids" table they were making solutions. It is all in preparation for next week when we create mixtures. We will have a "blast" on our last day before we track out. Speaking of which, we need corks. If anyone has some leftover beverage corks collected somewhere, could we please have 25?
** Video from the self-guided chemistry exploration has been posted to the "Exploring Science" page.
