January 27

Announcements:

• Half Day Thursday, January 30th
• No School Friday, January 31st
• Parent Teacher Interviews are Thursday, January 30th, from 1-4pm and 5-8pm and Friday January 31st from 10am-2pm
• Bell Let's Talk Mental Health Day Wednesday, January 29th 

Math:

Percent Word Problem Quiz: Wednesday, January 29th

Students are encouraged to do the practice problems we have been working on in class to be well prepared.

When solving:

• identify what you know and what the question is asking
• use the unit square and/or another strategy (e.g equivalent fractions)
• determine the value of one square (1%)
• if you know the whole write it at the top of the 100's grid
• show your calculations and solutions clearly

Here is a sample question from the practice problems:

Science:

We are learning about the theories of Continental Drift and Plate Tectonics. Today we watched Continents Adrift An Introduction to Continental Drift and Plate Tectonics.
For more information watch videos linked to the January 23rd post.

January 23

Announcements:

• Half Day Thursday, January 30th
• No School Friday, January 31st
• Parent Teacher Interviews are Thursday, January 30th, from 1-4pm and 5-8pm and Friday January 31st from 10am-2pm
• I hope today's wrestling meet was successful for those who attended!!!

Math: 

We are working on solving percent problems using the unit square.

A unit square has 100 squares and represents 100% as well as a whole (which could be anything: a pizza, 27 students, ...)
In the example below the whole is 400 people.

Note: When using the unit square always write the whole at the top & always solve for one percent or one small square.

One small square represents 1%.
In the case of 400 people, 1% of 400 is 4 (400/100 = 4).

Example Problem:

1.    Let the unit square represent 400 people. Write this as a title above the unit square.

a.    what does 1 small square represent? Colour in one square (1%) and write in the number of people this represents.

Are you able to figure out the next three questions with the information in the photo above?

b.    what do 5 small squares represent? 

c.    what do 20 small squares represent?  

d.    what part of the unit square would represent 100 people? 40 people? 120 people?  

***Please make sure if you missed today's class that you come see Ms. Bowen or Ms. Schneider!!!

Science:

*** Please hand in your Earth Layers assignment ASAP if you have not already done so!!!
Note: It was due on Thursday, January 23rd

In the next few classes we will be studying the theories of Continental Drift and Plate Tectonics.

A very important scientist, Alfred Wegener, is responsible for much of this understanding. He developed the theory of Continental Drift. To learn more about Continental Drift watch Continental Drift 101 and Plate Tectonics

Questions to Consider:

• What is the name of the supercontinent shown in the before image above?
• What evidence is there for the theory of Continental Drift?

The theory of Plate Tectonics describes the movement of the tectonic plates.

• What happens at convergent, divergent and transform boundaries? 

For another short explanation of Plate Tectonics watch Plate Tectonics Explained

January 21

Announcements:

• Parent Teacher Interviews (Thursday, January 30th, 1-4 and 5-8 & Friday, January 31st, 10-2) sign up starts tomorrow on-line (see school email for the link)
• Students who missed days due to cold weather or illness should see Ms. Bowen or Ms. Schneider for missed work
• Report Cards go home on January 27th

Math: 

We continue to practice converting between percentages, fractions and decimals. This week we will work on solving percent word problems using unit squares. 

Science:

Students are working on a visual journal page depicting the layers of the Earth. 
Earth Layers Visual Journal page is due Thursday, January 23rd, 2020

The poster should include:

• Title
• Diagram of the Earth and its layers
• Each layer labelled (Crust, Mantle, Outer Core, Inner Core)
• Lithosphere and asthenosphere labelled
• Five pieces of information about each layer in their own words

Students are encouraged to get this information from the earth layers video, the textbook p.355, and the earth layers presentation.

Cold Weather Science

What will happen when room temperature water (20 degrees Celcius) or boiling water (100 degrees Celcius) is thrown up in the air in -30 degree Celcius weather?

WARNING: Do not try this at home...boiling water is risky

Thank you to Mr. Moses for showing this to many students today!

We began by making hypotheses...

Note:

• There were three sizes of water streams: thin or narrow, cap width, and frying pan width
• The experiment was done using room temperature first and then boiling water (in all 3 widths)

Here is what it looked like with a frying pan of boiling water.

Who can explain why this happened?

I look forward to more conversation in class tomorrow!

January 13

Announcements:

• Please bring a 1-2 inch binder to class as soon as possible
• Report cards go home January 29th
• Teacher Conferences January 31st (no school)

Math: 

Monday students wrote a pretest for decimals and percent. This will inform our teaching this unit (percent and decimals). We will be working on converting decimals, percent, and fractions using our holiday questionnaire questions. We will also create a tool for remembering how to convert between decimals, fractions and percent.  

Science:

We continued to explore solutions to the world's ocean plastic problem. We watched another Boyan Slat video that further describes his solutions to ocean and river plastic pollution.

Students' tasks:

• Create a what? (facts) /so what? (feelings/impact) /now what? (solutions) table with three points per column
• Write a three paragraph mini essay. Include:
• opening sentence
• paragraph 1 - what? facts about the ocean plastic problem
• paragraph 2 - so what? how does this impact you? what do you feel? why is this important?
• paragraph 3 - now what? what are some solutions to this problem? Think about Boyan Slat and what his company is doing to try to solve this problem. What about the 7 ways to reduce plastic use
• closing/concluding sentence

Plastic Writing Assignment is due Friday, January 17th
- please attach planning table when you hand this in

Happy New Year

Welcome Back! 

Hope you all had a fun winter break!

Announcements:

• If you have a 1-2 inch binder, please bring it tomorrow
• Please look at Power School and bring in any missing assignments
• Ms. Schneider and Ms. Bowen will be teaching classes together until January 24th

Math:

We completed a holiday questionnaire and tallied how many students answered each question with a yes. In the next couple of classes we will be working on converting between percent, decimal, and fractions. 

Next week students will be writing a pretest on decimals and percent. This assessment is not for marks. It is to gather information about what they know entering these two topics.

Science:

We are starting a new unit in Science called Planet Earth. In order to tie concepts from past units into the new year we are starting by studying Boyan Slat's Ocean Cleanup. Tomorrow we will watch a video to learn about some of these ideas. Students will be invited to write about this video as well as other ocean plastic information from before the break.