Friday, 03/13/2009

Math
Today, we went over problems #42-#60 in our PSSA practice packets. Like before, after every question, you either checked it off or changed your answer to the correct one. After we got through all of those problems, we decided to finish the rest of the packet in class. The teacher gave us time to do it, then she asked for the correct answer. After doing that, we worked on luckily, our last open ended question. It practiced rotations, flips, and translations, or slides. After you drew the correct motion, you had to explain why it is correct. They were easy to me because we have practiced these motions before so I knew what to do. After that, we finished our vocabulary packet. There were about four pages we needed to complete. My group and I only got to get 2 pages done. As for the rest, we had to wait for the teacher to review it with us. After completing those packets, class was over.

Language Arts
Today, we worked on our Character Changes and Think About Themes pages for our Literature Menu. For the Character Changes page, we had to draw a picture of what a character might have looked like in the beginning of the book. We also had to give an explanation. Then we had to draw another picture. This one showed how a character might have looked like in the end. It also needed an explanation. For the first picture, I drew Claudia with an angry expression and thoughts around her showing how many chores she has to do. Then, I drew Claudia happy with confetti and blowing trumpets. For the Think About Theme page, we just had to answer some questions on the book's theme and we also had answer opinion questions on the theme. It was easy.

Science
Today, we took our test. There were questions on all the vocabulary words, and questions on plates. There was also one question where we had to explain how earthquakes, volcanoes, and mountains are alike. I answered that they are the same because they all form from plate movement. After the whole class finished testing, we watched a Bill Nye the Science Guy video. He talked about magma turning into lava and earthquakes. He gave us some experiments to try out. One of them needs a long pencil with a flat eraser, a ball of clay, a marble, and plastic bottle caps. You set a ball of clay on a table. You shove the pencil into the clay ball and surround the clay with your plastic bottle caps. You then place a marble on your flat eraser. Then you give the table a bump and from where ever the push, or “earthquake” came from, that's where the marble will fall. It looks interesting. I want to try it.