WMS: Math Quiz Tomorrow...

Dear Families,

This email is just a reminder that tomorrow students are taking a quiz on Surface Area and Volume. I am attaching the practice problems that are part of tonight's homework... just in case some got lost. The answers are also in there (assuming I haven't made any errors in calculating them).

Thanks!

Brian MacNevin

WMS: Math update

Dear Families,

I just wanted to give you a heads up about things going on in Math this week! We are moving along in 3D geometry and have just about reached the end of that unit. Today students took a practice quiz and got some feedback. The real quiz is this Thursday, 3/22/2012. Students have their practice quiz to examine tonight and tomorrow they will have some practice problems to work on (with answers included). I am putting much of that information now on my homework/class calendar located on my blog http://www.mrmacnevin.com. You can subscribe, or just stop by to see what's going on.

We have been focusing on these targets:

1. I can identify the net of a 3D shape.
2. I can determine the surface area of rectangular prisms and pyramids.
3. I can determine the volume of rectangular prisms.

Some students came in knowing some of this already, so some students have also been working on the volume and surface area of triangular prisms. Today some of them looked at cylinders. But those topics are really 7th grade topics and they'll get much deeper exposure to it next year. This year it was just as a natural extension of what they knew already and could apply to a new situation.

Only about a week and a half until spring break! Can you believe it? 

As always, thank you for everything you do to support your child's education.

Sincerely,

Brian MacNevin

WMS: Science Update...

Dear Families,

I just wanted to let you know that in science we have been talking about inheritance and genetics using a fictitious rat-like organism called a Larkey. Larkeys live in groups called "yammers." Larkeys are REALLY simple and have only four pairs of chromosomes. We have been looking at their genes for Appendage Length, Eye Color, Fur Pattern, and Tail Bushiness. 

We began a Larkey breeding simulation today and prefaced it with a talk about how these adult Larkeys have 8 chromosomes in their nuclei. And that if the female and the male Larkey simply put two of their cells together, the offspring would have 16 chromosomes; but that most animals can't don't develop typically if they have extras. So the male and the female have to somehow divide their chromosomes in half to make sperm and egg cells. When these special "half" cells join together, they make a cell with 8 chromosomes just like the mother and the father.

The simulation uses cards and die-cut alleles to "pass" the genes from parent to offspring. It looks a lot more like a complicated board game that it looks like we're breeding imaginary critters. But if your child is asking you about heredity or about breeding animals, you know what they might be thinking about.

Our Larkey breeding program will continue this week and we will be examining the F1 and F2 generations from these matings.

I hope you're out enjoying that sun! What a beautiful afternoon!

Sincerely,

Brian MacNevin

WMS: Math Update: Prisms and Nets and Surface Areas, OH MY! :)

Dear Families,

Welcome to Semester 2 week 5! 

Circle Quiz on Wednesday

• Well, it turns out that Wednesday 3/14 is International Pi Day! So it seemed a fortuitous day to locate our replacement circle quiz. As it turns out, March 14th is also Albert Einstein's birthday! So in math we will start with our quiz and then we will have a little artistic fun with circles for math time. 
  

Math Reviews and Homework

• Just a reminder that on Mondays we do the math review together and identify he strategies your child should be practicing throughout the week. Then on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday nights, your child has a homework assignment to complete their next math review. It is due the next day and we will go over answers and strategies then. On Fridays there is a quiz that covers all the same strategies and concepts, so your child has had many opportunities to learn how to do it correctly. There are usually no surprises for them on Fridays about what is on the quiz: they've been practicing all week.
  
• While we're on the topic of homework, I will always stamp your child's planner on the day their homework was due if it is complete. If it is incomplete, I won't stamp it (but they can bring it in later to have it stamped when they complete it). So on most weeks by Friday, your child should have four stamps in the math boxes of their planner for Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday.
  
• Homework assignments are listed on my website http://www.mrmacnevin.com. I have been trying to keep that updated and, when possible, I am putting answers to problems in the DETAILS section of the assignment. Students must show all their work in order for me to stamp their homework because it's just too easy to copy down the answers and say, "see, I did it!" 

And the topic of the now in math?

• In math right now we are extending "nets" to surface area and pyramids. Last week we started talking about rectangular prisms and nets and on Friday we began using that to find surface area of some three dimensional shapes. Today we continued with that practice for review and we extended it to talk about finding the surface area of pyramids. Then later this week we will move into calculating the volume of rectangular prisms and triangular prisms.
  
• I've made a short short 5-min ShowMe video about what we've been up to with nets and surface area at this [link]. The quality isn't great and the drawings are... well... they're drawings. But I thought it might give you a sense about what your children are working on. It's highly visual, and I've been surprised at just how difficult it can be sometimes to talk about surface area with children. If your child is struggling with the concept, drawing a flat 2D "net" and then identifying the individual faces from the shape on that net can help them figure out the surface area.
  

Sincerely,

Brian MacNevin

Auroras possibly visible tonight?

Well, I don't know how lucky we will be this evening, but there is a chance of seeing auroras in the skies tonight... if it's not cloudy... and if the effects of the coronal mass expulsion are strong enough! Fingers crossed!

Personally, I've *never* seen them before. So I'm really hopeful this time! :)

WMS: Math Update. Using today's quiz differently

Dear Families,

I just wanted to give you an update about our quiz today. The kids were amazing and stuck with it for all the time they had. It was inspiring to see their tenacity! But in the end, it was just too long for them to all complete in the time given. There were also some questions on it that I felt confused many people because it was asking them to do a couple things all at once with the same problem. Knowing that now, I would have designed it differently, but I don't think it's very fair of me to ding the kids' grades based on this particular assessment -- even if they can retake it.

Instead of counting this one as an "summative grade" in the gradebook, I will use today's quiz formatively. That means that I want to use it as an opportunity for the kids to reflect on the questions and to sort them into three categories: 

1. The things I know how to do.
2. The things I know how to do but I was slowed down by hand calculations.
3. The things I don't know how to do yet.

In the mean time, I will create a different quiz to assess these learning targets for circles:

• I can calculate the area and perimeter/circumference of any circle.
• I can calculate the area and perimeter of composite shapes having circular parts to them (semi circles of quarter circles).

Please help me congratulate our students on their hard work today.

Sincerely,

Brian MacNevin

WMS: Math Update

Dear EdVenture Families,

Just a note to welcome you to the new week (unfortunately a day late, but both of my children are now fever-free. YAY!).

Finishing up Circles? Not quite yet.

We are not yet "done" with the circle stuff. In fact, we have a quiz tomorrow on circles. Practice problems went home on Monday (yesterday) and they answers were on the back of them. They were to be done as homework and are due back today to be checked in. We will see circles again on the unit test.

Transitions to 3D!

We're transitioning from talking about 2D circles, parallelograms, and composite shapes to talking about 3-dimensional shapes. In 6th grade we will focus on describing the surface area and the volume of prisms (boxes made of rectangles, triangles, etc). Today we picked up a new book from the library (Filling and Wrapping) that we will be using as a resource for these learning targets:

• LT: I can relate a rectangular prism to its net.
• LT: I can calculate the surface area of rectangular and other prisms.
• LT: I can find the volume of a rectangular prism and explain why my strategy works.

Write your answer "in terms of pi?"

• So, pi is an idea, really. It's more of a concept: what is the ratio of a circles circumference to its diameter? As long as we are strictly talking about the idea, we can leave it as a Greek letter, π. So, if we want to find the circumference of a circle with a diameter of 3 m, I could simply write:
  C= π x d
  C= π x 3
  C= 3π m (now, this is tricky because our students aren't yet familiar with algebraic notation of variables and coefficients) 
• But if I replace π with an estimate of its value (either 22/7 or 3.14), then I am finding just an estimate of the circumference.
  C= π x d
  C≈  3.14 x 3
  C≈  9.42 m
• So that's all that is meant by "in terms of pi."

Six-Legged Giant Finds Secret Hideaway, Hides For 80 Years : Krulwich Wonders... : NPR

For my students,

We've been learning about Walking Stick Insects. And here is the article I found this morning that described the large ones that are called "Tree Lobsters." Wow! By the way, I was wrong: the rats didn't take 50 years to kill all the tree lobsters. They took only TWO years to do it! WOW!

Six-Legged Giant Finds Secret Hideaway, Hides For 80 Years : Krulwich Wonders... : NPR

Enjoy the article!

~Mr. Mac