February+Weekly+Wiki

February 25-March 1, 2013

This week was wicked!

This week was great in Social Studies. This week we learned about two of the three colonial regions. Two of those regions are the Middle Colonies and the Southern Colonies. We learned about two states in each of the regions. The two states in the Middle Colony were New York and Pennsylvania. I will first tell you about New York. The British named New York, but it was first settled by the Dutch. In 1664, the British captured the colony. The King of England gave the colony to his brother, the Duke of York. Winters in New York were freezing and summers were humid, or as some people might say, moist. The colonists had little control over New York’s government. People known as Governors did most of the controlling by doing what England wanted done. The Governor appointed other officials and enforced the laws. Now I will tell you about Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania was named after a very famous person named William Penn. There were a lot of Quakers who lived there. Quakers were a religious group whose beliefs differed from those of other churches. Pennsylvania’s geography provided many resources. They had rich soil, forest, and raw materials like coal and minerals. In 1696, Pennsylvania became more democratic when the elected members of the Assembly gained the power to write laws. Next, I will tell you about the two Southern colonies. They were Maryland and Georgia. First is Maryland. Lord Baltimore started the colony of Maryland in 1634. Maryland’s summers were hot and steamy, and it was great for growing tobacco. They also grew corn, wheat, and fruit trees. Most people had little power in Maryland’s government. In 1637 Calvert allowed the colony to have an Assembly. Now on to Georgia. Georgia was started in 1732. Wealthy British men wanted to help poor people avoid going to debtor’s prison. In the north part of Georgia, settlers cut down forests and sold lumber. Colonists earned a living by trading goods with American Indians. That’s all for Georgia. Well, that’s all for this week. See you next week.

“Awwwwwwww!” Do you know why we’re making that noise? Fine, I’ll tell you. The reason we’re making that noise is because we had the best week in Math! First, we started with LCD. Do you know what LCD stands for? Yep, you guessed it—lowest common denominator. Another cool fact is that the LCD can also be called the LCM. It stands for the same thing, but the M stands for multiple. Well, let’s get started. The first thing you do is write out the multiples for the denominator in your first fraction. Next, you do the same thing to the second denominator in the second fraction. Last, but not least, is to find the lowest common multiple between the two denominators. It’s easy peasy, lemon squeezy. Here, I’ll give you a problem. Say you have 1/8 and 1/6. The multiples for 8 are 8, 16, 24, 32, and 40. The multiples for 6 are 6, 12, 18, 24, and 30. So, what is the LCM or LCD? Correct, 24. (Applause please). Let’s move on, shall we? The next thing we did in Math this week was adding fractions with unlike denominators. It involves the LCD or LCM. So, if you have 4/6 + 2/15, you would have to first find the LCD or LCM, which is 30. Next, you have to do the trick with whatever you do to the bottom you have to do to the top. You ask, six times what equals 30? Five, right? The trick comes in now. You need to multiply five by the numerator four and that equals 20. Now, so far you have 20/30. Next, you do the trick to the other fractions and you get 4/30. Now you add up the numerators. The final answer is 24/30. The next day we worked on reducing our answers. You do everything the same and add one more step. Here comes in the greatest common factor or GCF. The factors of 24 are 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 12, and 24. The factors for 30 are 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 10, 15, and 30. The GCF is 6. Now you divide the 30 by six. That equals five. Remember that whatever you do to the bottom you have to do to the top. So, you have to do 24 divided by six and that equals 4. (drum roll, please). The final answer is 4/5. Lastly, the final thing we did in Math was regrouping fractions. Do you want to do it? Well, let’s start then! Again, you do everything the same, but if you get an answer like 5/4 you have to turn it into a mixed fraction. Next, the way you turn it into a mixed fraction is by dividing the numerator by the denominator. If you divided right, you would get one and a remainder of one. You would keep the same denominator. Your answer should be 1 ¼. Did you have fun learning? Now you can see why we’re sad the week is over.

This week was awesome with a hint of mouse to it. This is why it was like that. Parker, a person in our class, was blowing his nose and then he just casually said, “Mrs. Tomlin, there’s a mouse on your floor.” All of the girls jumped to their seats. The whole day mice were running around. So that covers the hint of mice. So, let’s move on to some not so mousy stuff. Two days later there was no school because the night before there was a big sleet and snow storm. There are two more reasons why this week was so awesome. One is because today is a HALF DAY. We dismissed at 11:10. This is the last thing to sum it up. We also had a tornado drill so if one were to touch down we would be prepared. Now, do you understand why this week was awesome with a hint of mouse to it?

That’s why this week was wickedly awesome!

By Brendan, Joe and Sean

February 11-15, 2013

We had a knock your socks off week in Language Arts! You’ll never believe why. We finished our fun Wanted Poster. (You know, typing our descriptions.) I never knew I __WANTED__ to do that! Next, we compared and contrasted on Study Island! C/C is what it is abbreviated as. Ooh, here is something that’ll make your eyeballs fall out: we learned what idioms are! An idiom is a phrase that doesn’t mean what it said. Like when I said, “Something that’ll make your eyeballs fall out!” It doesn’t mean they’ll actually fall out. It means it’s something amazing or awesome. Next, we did a Working with Words ditto. WWW is very cool! I’m running to hear what’s next! Our class learned about a…ta da...a verb. A verb is a word that tells what a noun is doing. This is an example of a verb: The cat __pounced__ on his prey. A verb doesn’t have to be just on animals, obviously. It can be a person doing something, too. Like, I __waved__ at them. Now, this is a new thing to us called personification! Personification is when you give a thing, not a human, human qualities. Here is an example: The trees danced crazily in the wind. So, what was the personification in the sentence? __The trees danced__! As you know, trees can’t dance. No, not because they have two left roots, but because they aren’t human. Really, if you think about it, an idiom and personification are kind of alike. In my example, the trees danced crazily in the wind. It meant that they were moving like they were dancing in the wind, but actually it was just their branches moving. So, basically, they are almost alike. Well, that’s it for our eye-popping week in Language Arts.

Do you know what is better than a big box of Reese’s Cups and a ticket to a football, baseball, basketball, soccer, or hockey game? Give up? It was Math this week! What we did this week was equivalent fractions, how to get the greatest common factor, and reducing fractions. Which one do you want to learn first? Equivalent fractions? Okay. First, you find a number that can be multiplied or divided into both numbers. Next, you multiply or divide the numerator and denominator by that number. Remember that whatever you do to the bottom, you have to do to the top. For example, if you want to solve this 1/2 = ?/10, you would first you would see how many times 2 goes into 10? Correct—5 times. So 2 times 5 equals 10. Remember, whatever you do to the bottom, you have to do to the top. Since you multiplied 2 by 5 to get 10, you have to multiply 1 times 5 on the top. You get 5. So, 1/2 = 5/10. That’s a wrap on equivalent fractions. Now, let’s start on the greatest common factor. Here is how you do it. First, you write out all of the factors for both numbers you have in the fraction. Next, you see which fractions are common (or the same) and whatever one is the highest is the greatest common factor. Here is an example. Let’s say you have 24 and 10. The factors for 24 are 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 12, and 24. The factors for 10 are 1, 2, 5, and 10. So, the greatest common factor (or GCF) is 2 (crowd applause, please). The last thing we have in store for you is reducing fractions. Reducing fractions is as easy as sitting on the couch. First, you find the GCF of the two numbers in the fraction. Now you divide by the GCF to reduce the fraction down to simplest form. For example, you have 10/15. The factors for 10 are 1, 2, 5, and 10. Next, you do the factors for 15 which are 1, 3, 5, and 15. The GCF is 5. Now you divided both numbers by 5 and you get 2/3. Lastly, do you want to know a cool trick? Yes? Okay. Reduce also means simplify. That is why this week in math was WAY better than a big box of Reese’s and a ticket to a sports game!

Wow! I just realized how amazingly fantastic Social Studies was this week! Would you like to know what we did? Yep, you guessed it. We learned about 3 different settlements that happened in the United States. The first settlement we learned about was Roanoke, also called The Lost Colony. If you don’t know why it’s called The Lost Colony then here it is. In the 1500’s England was a powerful nation. Sir Walter Raleigh was a friend of England’s Queen Elizabeth. Raleigh believed that American colonies could make England even more powerful. So, in 1584, he sent 2 ships to explore the coast of North America. Eventually, the ships landed on an island near present day North Carolina. The sailors then called the island Roanoke. The explorers soon returned to England and told Raleigh that the island had fish, animals, fruits, vegetables, and friendly people. The following year, Raleigh sent men to start a colony. A while after they had been there, supplies had run short. Later that year, their Captain, John White, went back to England for more supplies. Three years later, White returned to Roanoke, and guess what? Everything was gone. The settlers, their houses, everything was gone! The only thing there was the CROATON carved in a tree. To this day, no one knows what happened to the settlers. So, do you see why it was called The Lost Colony? The next settlement we learned about was called Jamestown. If you want to hear the story, then here it is. In 1606, England’s King James gave permission to a group of wealthy men to start a colony in North America. One hundred five men went on this adventure. They hoped that the colony would make them richer. In May, 1607, the settlers arrived in Virginia. Their site was upriver from Chesapeake Bay. It was also far enough away from the river that Spanish ships could not easily attack. The group built a settlement enclosed by walls of a fort. In honor to their king, they named this settlement Jamestown. Unfortunately, the settlers built Jamestown on a marsh. One of the worst things about it was that there were millions of mosquitoes that carried a deadly disease called malaria. In late 1607, some American Indians captured a settler named Captain John Smith. They took Smith to their chief, Powhatan. According to Smith, the chief was about to kill him. Fortunately, Powhatan’s young daughter, Pocahontas, saved his life. In January, 1608, more men arrived from England. Later that year, John Smith became the leader of the colony. In the summer of 1609, more men arrived along with women and children. The next month, Smith returned to England because he had been badly burned by an explosion with gun powder. The colonists had lost a strong leader. Soon after Smith left, they ran out of food. The years of 1609-1610 were known as the Starving Time. Hundreds of people died. Only about 60 people survived. A colonist named John Rolfe had learned how to grow a new kind of crop. It was called tobacco. In 1614, they began to trade tobacco for money and supplies. Later that year, John Rolfe married Pocahontas. Sadly, in 1617, Pocahontas died. Meanwhile, Jamestown was becoming successful. The settlers had made a government and things were good. In 1622, a group of men attacked Jamestown and killed 347 colonists. But, Jamestown was a very successful settlement. So, do you think that our week in Social Studies was awesome? Well, if not, here is a story about a settlement called Plymouth. There the people were looking for religious freedom. King James said that everyone in England had to go to the same church. Some people refused. These people were called Separatists. The Separatists decided to move to a place where they could practice their own religion. In time, this group got called Pilgrims. In 1620, the Pilgrims sailed from England. They traveled on a ship called the Mayflower. After 2 months at sea, they landed on the tip of Cape Cod, in what is now Massachusetts. They then wrote out rules that helped them live together peacefully. It got called The Mayflower Compact. Then they elected a governor. Their first winter was hard. It was too late in the year to plant crops. Nearly half of the Pilgrims died of disease and starvation. In March 1621, a man named Squanto visited the Pilgrims. Squanto told the Pilgrims about many things. In fact, he was such a help that in 1621, the Pilgrims worked together and made a feast. They celebrated and ate food. We now call this holiday Thanksgiving, thanks to the Pilgrims. So, that’s what we did in Social Studies. Do you see why it was amazingly awesome?

WOW! I can’t wait to tell you about the special things that happened this week. To start off the week, we didn’t have school on Monday due to bad back roads. Isn’t that a good way to start the week? Then, on Tuesday, we welcomed Imani into our class! On Wednesday we got ready for our __PARTY__ that we had on Thursday! That party wasn’t just any party (oh, no). It was an ice cream sundae party!!!!!! Aside from the party (drum roll, please), we also had hand held and board game day! It was our reward for earning 70 points in January. Can I get a little Whoop, Whoop? Our class also passed out Valentine’s to everyone. Mrs. Tomlin gave us paper bags to decorate so people could put their Valentine’s in there. The special thing that happened on Friday was that it was Friday! TGIF!

By Joe, Vivian, Brooke, and Melisa