Friday, March 22, 2013

Week 2, 3/25 to 3/29

(This may change from day to day depending on how much we actually get done in class so check back often to make sure something wasn't changed at the last minute.) 

 Last updated on Thursday, Mar 28, 2013, 3:20pm 

 Daily Schedule 
1st per - 7:45am to 8:37am 
2nd per - 8:41am to 9:33am 
3rd per - 9:37am to 10:29am 
Eagle Time - 10:33am to 11:00am 
Lunch - 11:00am to 11:32am 
4th per - 11:36am to 12:28pm 
5th per - 12:32pm to 1:24pm 
6th per - 1:28pm to 2:20pm
6th grade Science

Monday - Today students will continue to work on a Benthic Macroinvertebrate Activity in preparation for a guest presenter from the North Olympic Salmon Coalition who will be coming this Wednesday.

HW - Finish your water pollution Public Service Announcement at home if you have Internet. If you don't have Internet then just finish it on paper.

Tuesday - Today students should finish answering the seven Benthic Macroinvertebrate Activity questions. We will spend some time this period preparing for tomorrow by learning how to use the digital scopes and figuring out how we're going to score Chimacum Creek using benthic macros!

HW - See Monday.

Wednesday - Today Jac from North Olympic Salmon Coalition will be visiting all the 6th grade classes bringing samples of benthic macros from our creek! We will use those samples to have students identify them and determine the biological integrity of our creek.

HW - See Monday.

Thursday - Today we will debrief yesterday's experience and continue working with the topic of biological integrity as students make stories with benthic macros and salmon as the characters and Chimacum Creek as the setting. The end product will be a comic book story (Benthic Macroinvertebrate Activity).

HW - See Monday

Friday - Today students will continue to work on their benthic macro comic book story.

HW - Finish your water pollution public service announcement and your benthic macroinvertebrate activity questions if you haven't already!

Have a great Spring Break!
8th grade Science

Monday - Today students will finish their SpongeBob genetics activity so that we can check the answers.

HW - Finish your Genetics Blog Assignment at home if you didn't finish in class last week.

Tuesday - Today I will introduce the next unit of study on plants! Then we will take a quick probe to see how students determine whether something is a plant or not.

HW - See Monday.

Wednesday - Today students will form teams and start planning their plant projects. Students will be conducting research as well as designing experiments to conduct.

HW - See Monday.

Thursday - Students are finishing up their plans and beginning their research for the plant projects. Some are also working on their experiment plan so they can collect what they need over spring break.

Here's a link to the Google documents teams are using to plan their projects.

HW - See Monday

Friday - Today teams will be working on their research.

HW - Work on any part of your plant project or experiment that you need to work on over the break!

Have a great Spring Break!
Email me with any questions.


Monday, March 18, 2013

Week 1, 3/18 to 3/22

(This may change from day to day depending on how much we actually get done in class so check back often to make sure something wasn't changed at the last minute.) 

 Last updated on Thursday, Mar 21, 2013, 4:21pm 

 Daily Schedule 
1st per - 7:45am to 8:37am 
2nd per - 8:41am to 9:33am 
3rd per - 9:37am to 10:29am 
Eagle Time - 10:33am to 11:00am 
Lunch - 11:00am to 11:32am 
4th per - 11:36am to 12:28pm 
5th per - 12:32pm to 1:24pm 
6th per - 1:28pm to 2:20pm
6th grade Science

Monday - Students are working on writing a public service announcement blog.  For the last three weeks of class students read about water pollution and took notes to be able to write a scientifically accurate piece.

Those who want more experience points can take more notes at home and turn them in to me via email or google doc or on paper.

HW - None if you're all caught up (see previous three weeks).

Tuesday - Today we're on an Early Release schedule for periods 1, 3, and 5 (each period will be about an hour long).

Today students should finish their rough draft, have a teammate read it and provide feedback, edit their work and publish or republish it. 

Students also need to put a picture on their blog with a title. Using pizap.com to put the title on the image and watching my video tutorials numbers 7 through 10 will show kids how to do it all.

HW - Finish your water pollution Public Service Announcement at home if you have Internet. If you don't have Internet then just finish it on paper.

Wednesday - Today we're on an Early Release schedule for periods 2, 4, and 6 (each period will be about an hour long).


Today students should finish their rough draft, have a teammate read it and provide feedback, edit their work and publish or republish it. 

Students also need to put a picture on their blog with a title. Using pizap.com to put the title on the image and watching my video tutorials numbers 7 through 10 will show kids how to do it all.

HW - Finish your water pollution Public Service Announcement at home if you have Internet. If you don't have Internet then just finish it on paper.

Thursday - Today we will begin to make the transition to the next topic of study: Benthic Macroinvertebrates and Biological Integrity of Rivers, Streams, or Creeks.

HW - See Wednesday.

Friday - Today students will be working on a Benthic Macroinvertebrate Activity in preparation for a guest presenter from the North Olympic Salmon Coalition next week.

HW - See Wednesday.
8th grade Science

Monday - Today students worked on their Punnett Square drawings. They chose traits from two parents, made Punnett Squares to find the probability of the offspring's traits and they draw one possible offspring showing the genotype of the traits and the probability of the offspring actually having those traits.

HW - None

Tuesday - Today we're on an Early Release schedule for periods 1, 3, and 5 (each period will be about an hour long).

Today students will finish the Punnett Square drawing activity and share their offspring and genotype results on their Genetics Blog Assignment.

HW - None

Wednesday - Today we're on an Early Release schedule for periods 2, 4, and 6 (each period will be about an hour long).

Today students will finish the Punnett Square drawing activity and share their offspring and genotype results on their Genetics Blog Assignment.

HW - None

Thursday - Today students will finish their Genetics Blog Assignment

HW - Finish your Genetics Blog Assignment if you didn't finish in class.

Friday - Today students will do a Spongebob Genetics activity to review everything we've been learning about Mendelian Genetics.

HW - Same as yesterday.
Email me with any questions.


Friday, March 8, 2013

Week 13, 3/11 to 3/15

(This may change from day to day depending on how much we actually get done in class so check back often to make sure something wasn't changed at the last minute.) 

 Last updated on Wednesday, Mar 13, 2013, 4:27pm 

 Daily Schedule 
1st per - 7:45am to 8:37am 
2nd per - 8:41am to 9:33am 
3rd per - 9:37am to 10:29am 
Eagle Time - 10:33am to 11:00am 
Lunch - 11:00am to 11:32am 
4th per - 11:36am to 12:28pm 
5th per - 12:32pm to 1:24pm 
6th per - 1:28pm to 2:20pm
6th grade Science

Monday - If you haven't finished your Water Pollution notes, we worked on them for the last two weeks in class, you should have finished them for homework.

Today students should begin to draft their public service announcement blog. Once done with that they will get more experience points from me.

HW - None, unless you are still taking notes.

Tuesday - Same as yesterday. Those who are still in the research, note-taking phase, need to catch up because we need to be drafting our public service announcement blog this week (this is the 3rd week of this project!).

HW - None if you're all caught up (meaning you are done taking notes).

Wednesday - Same as yesterday. I moved students who are very behind on their notes to the water pollution preventions section and I've offered my room after school on Tuesdays. Mr. Meacham's room and Ms. Shea's room will also be available for after school catch up work Wednesdays and Thursdays. 

I'm trying to help everyone get to work on their public service announcement blog.

HW - None if you're done taking notes.

Thursday - Today is the last day of the 2nd trimester!

I have asked everyone to start working on their public service announcement blog regardless of how many notes they've taken. To get more experience points for notes taken students can work on their notes after school and show me to get more points (points, or lack thereof, are not being used for grading purposes but only to show how much is getting done).

HW - If you prefer a letter grade instead of a Pass on your Skyward report card, fill out and turn in, on paper or electronically, a Final Grade Negotiation Sheet. It's due Monday, Mar 18.

Friday - Trimester Break - there will be no school today because we didn't need a snow day (this would have been our snow make-up day).

HW - None if you're all caught up!
8th grade Science

Monday - Today we will continue working on our Gregor Mendel pea plant experiments. Students will learn what Mendel learned when crossing green peas with yellow peas.

HW - None

Tuesday - Today we will continue our genetics explorations by crossing carnations! Then we will practice some more Punnett squares.

2nd period set the fish traps.

HW - None

Wednesday - Today we are going to learn which traits are dominant and which traits are recessive so that we can practice using Punnet squares on human traits.

2nd period will retrieve the fish traps today to id and count any fish we trapped.

HW - None

Thursday - Today is the last day of the 2nd trimester!

Eighth graders are still working with Punnett squares and human traits.

HW - If you prefer a letter grade instead of a Pass on your Skyward report card, fill out and turn in, on paper or electronically, a Final Grade Negotiation Sheet. It's due Monday, Mar 18.


Friday - Trimester Break - there will be no school today because we didn't need a snow day (this would have been our snow make-up day).

HW - None if you're all caught up!
Email me with any questions.


Friday, March 1, 2013

Week 12, 3/4 to 3/8

(This may change from day to day depending on how much we actually get done in class so check back often to make sure something wasn't changed at the last minute.) 

 Last updated on Thursday, Mar 7, 2013, 3:24pm 

 Daily Schedule 
1st per - 7:45am to 8:37am 
2nd per - 8:41am to 9:33am 
3rd per - 9:37am to 10:29am 
Eagle Time - 10:33am to 11:00am 
Lunch - 11:00am to 11:32am 
4th per - 11:36am to 12:28pm 
5th per - 12:32pm to 1:24pm 
6th per - 1:28pm to 2:20pm
6th grade Science

Monday - Students are still working on their Water Pollution Webquest, the research phase. By this week students need to complete the research phase, get their experience points, and begin the drafting phase where they will write a public service announcement blog.

HW - If you haven't turned in your National Board and the WA GreenSTEMs release forms (I check in with those who haven't turned them in everyday) please do so now. I handed these out two weeks ago.

Tuesday - Same as yesterday since many students are still working on the research phase. 

HW - See Monday

Wednesday - Same as Monday.

HW - See Monday

Thursday - Students are finishing their water pollution research. As they finish I look over their notes and let them know how many experience points they got. 

Once students finish their research they will begin to draft their public service announcement blog  Once done with that they will get more experience points from me.

HW - See Monday.

Friday - Same as yesterday.

HW - See Monday, if you are not done with your notes, it's been two weeks, or if you are behind, then finish your notes this weekend.
8th grade Science

Monday - Students are still working on their meiosis assignment.

HW - If you haven't turned in your National Board release form (I check in with those who haven't turned them in everyday) please do so now. I handed these out two weeks ago.

Tuesday - Today we will have an assessment on mitosis and meiosis. Students will show whether they remember what chromosomes do in all the different phases of mitosis and meiosis.

HW - See Monday

Wednesday - Today we will be working on part 2 of the mitosis and meiosis assessment. Today students will take a multiple choice test working as a team!

HW - None

Thursday - Today I won't have my 2nd period students because of career day.

Half of my 5th period class will be working on commenting on our Quadblogging pals today while the other half take the test they missed yesterday (most of them were at Band Adjudication).

HW - None

Friday - Today we will go over a few test items, the ones that most people missed.

Then we will begin learning about Mendelian Genetics (we will discover what Mendel discovered with his pea plants).

HW - None
Email me with any questions.