Wednesday October 19, 2011

8th Grade Math:  Today in math students began class with the problem of the day.  We then transitioned back into chapter 2.  Today we were reviewing the distributive property and combining like terms.  Students took a quiz on Friday of last week, and they spent about 30 minutes of class time making corrections from their quizzes.  We then jumped back into chapter 2, section 3 on simplifying variable expressions.   Mr. Olsen led students through a couple different important vocabulary words, such as coefficients and constants.    

Assignments:  Students should be finishing up their quiz corrections if they did not finish in the class time provided.  Review homework #12 is due on Friday. 

7th Grade Math:  Today in math students began class by using their flashmasters.  We then jumped back into chapter 2 section 3 on multiplying decimals.  Mr. Olsen led students through the important rules of simply multiplying the decimals as you would whole numbers, and then counting the number of digits behind the decimal point in the original factors, as that will tell you how many digits need to be behind the decimal point in the product.   Students began class by practicing multiplying decimals for the first 25 minutes of class, before we moved into section 2.4 on dividing decimals.  Mr. Olsen led students through a couple example problems, before we ran out of time. 

Assignments:  Review homework #12 is due on Friday.

Science:  This week in science students are beginning the rotation we have planned for our students here in the Aurora House.  Mr. Olsen's students are with Ms. Pasteris this week, and will be learning about the preservation and preparation of salmon using cultural means.   In Mr. Olsen's classroom this week, Mr. White's students were introduced to the Salmon Habitat and Water Quality Unit.  Students were introduced to the nine physical stream parameters that they will be measuring on Switzer Creek later this week.  Tomorrow (Thursday) Ms. Villanueva's class will be heading outside for the entire afternoon with guests from Alaska Department of Fish and Game.  A fishery biologist will be joining us for each of the next two days to help further the knowledge of our students and water quality.

Assignments:  Students can be spending some time furthering their knowledge of the physical parameter that we talked about in class today in science class.