What fraction of the day do you spend using fractions?

Today we spent about 1/5 of our day working with the first part of our fractions unit.  When working with fractions, it is always important to identify what in the problem represents the whole.  Think about if you were asked the question: “If I gave you 1/3 of my money, how much would you have?”  The answer can change depending on how much money is included in the whole.  The difference between fractions as specific values on a number line and fractions as ratios of different sized sets can often be a difficult one to distinguish for students.  As we work through the fraction unit, please spend some time going over the homework with your children to make sure they are interpreting the questions correctly and distinguishing what the fraction represents.

In writing today we continued to develop our New Year’s Resolution Extended Metaphors.  In reading, students shared the information they got from skimming their books and created collaborative time-lines.  Tonight  students in Lit. Circle groups will be doing the illustrator job.

Vocabulary words this week are a collection of words with Greek and Latin Numeric prefixes of uni-, mono-, bi-, and tri. We will spend some time going over our six focus words tomorrow.

Homework:

1. Language Arts:  Literature Circle Groups – Read tonight’s section and do the Illustrator job page.
2. Mathematics:Parts and Whole Fraction Practice page 91
3. Other: Finish New Year’s Resolution Extended Metaphor Part 2, Finish Vivid Vocabulary list.
4. Reading: Read for 20 minutes and fill out pink reading log.

Mr. Weis

Welcome to 2009!

Who is this strange looking 2-faced guy, and why is he the picture accompanying the first post of the year 2009?  Why it’s Janus of course, the Roman god of gates, doors, beginnings, and endings.  Today in class we spent a little time learning about Janus and how his name eventually came to mark the new year, resolutions, and the month January.  We also spoke some about making New Year’s resolutions and began a writing project based on incorporating resolutions into an essay in the form of an extended metaphor.  We will be working on developing the essay over the course of this week in writing.

In Math today we began our unit on fractions with an activity documenting what people did over vacation by creating three circle venn diagrams and identifying different fractions within them.  Over the next couple weeks, we will delve into fractions, decimals, and percents.  A unit-opening family letter will be sent home tomorrow.

Reading homework for students with an active reading book in Literature Circles is to skim through their books to refresh themselves on what they have read so far.  In class we discussed strategies for quick and successful skimming, and I sent home a page with a few pointers to help them out.

Homework:

1. Language Arts: Lit Circle Groups – skim through what you have read so far in your group, complete a timeline or character description to bring to group tomorrow.
2. Mathematics: Practice Set 28.  Don’t forget to show your work and attach any extra paper you used.
3. Other: Finish writing rules for the resolution pre-writing if it was not finished in class.
4. Reading: Read for 20 minutes and fill out pink reading log.

Mr. Weis

(Edit: It appears that I forgot to hit the submit button last night and when I went to check if I had any messages on the blog this morning I realized I didn’t publish the post.)