Wednesday, 02/04/2009

Math
Today, we learned how to write numbers in expanded notation. Not just the addition way though. We also did the multiplication version and the power of 10's multiplication version. In addition mode, you just add the digit of whatever place value to the others. For example:

2,784=2,000+700+80+4

The multiplication version is a little more complicated. Whatever place value it's in, you do that value times the digit in it's place. For example:

2,784=(2x1,000)+(7x100)+(8x10)+(4x1)

The power of 10's multiplication version is a lot tougher. It's tough to explain so let me draw it out for you. Here's an example:

2,784=(2x103)+(7x102)+(8x101)+(4x100)

It was pretty complicated but once you get the hang of it, it comes to you a lot quicker. For me, it was fun yet challenging. They can trick you so you must be careful. We completed about two pages in our Math Journal 2 which had these problems. We also did a two pages of math boxes in our math journal but they didn't have these kinds of problems.

Language Arts
Today, we continued checking over our 4sight test. We finished problems 15-28, including the writing prompt. At the end, I got about eight wrong. Yikes!!! Luckily, I got 3 on the writing prompt. It was perfect and I was relieved. I was so scared about my score. I got proficient—just like everyone else. Well, at least that's what I heard the teacher said. I was pretty bummed about my eight incorrect problems. Well, those are now goals and I need to work on it—a lot.

Science
Today, we started our unit on fossils. We first answered some questions about the Earth as it was a looooooong time ago. There were a lot of plants, a lot of dinosaurs, and one big continent. Now, that's changed. We're all spread apart. After answering those questions, we had to write down the definitions of vocab words for this unit. There was fossil, organism, and many more. It was easy to do and now we have to study the definitions. You never know when a pop quiz comes. It can come on Monday, Tuesday, Friday, or the two days in between. After the vocab words, we watched a video on fossils. It showed how fossils are made, fossil imprint information, how they display fossils in museums and much more. It was pretty cool. The characters in the video were weird though. There was a robot named Geo and a talking computer!!!