Science 8S
We discussed our separation techniques charts, and did some notes on the same.
assignment: none

Math 8S
We did graphing decimals, comparing decimals, ordering decimals and rounding decimals.
assignment: p. 89 (all), p. 90 B(even), A (all), p. 91 (all)

Science 7X
We made a river in the dirt today and watched the effect of moving water on the banks.
assignment: Study for topic 3 quiz (Monday)

Math 7X
Continued with equivalent fractions.
assignment: none

Video Game Design
We almost finished Galactic Mail

Announcements
* Thanks to the parents that came out for meet the staff night last night.

Science 8S
* We had our WHMIS quiz, watched a video on how aluminum and iron are separated from rock, discussed the video, and worked on a separation assignment.
assignment: Finish separation techniques chart (text p. 27)

Math 8S
* Converting fractions to decimals by division.
assignment: Finish fractions to decimals worksheet 3.

PE 8S
* Gauntlet!

Science 7X
* We discussed and did some notes on erosion, then we made river banks out of our desks and sent the students downstream as water molecules.
assignment: Finish erosion worksheet.

Math 7X
* Equivalent fractions with Mrs. Karch.

Video Game Design
* The students worked on their own today from booklets on the Galactic Mail game. About half of them liked doing it on their own, and half didn't. So, tomorrow, we'll have two groups.

Announcements
* Meet the teacher night tonight at 6 p.m.
* There are still a few Terry Fox Run pledge sheets that need to come in.

Science 8S
* Today we started notes and an assignment on seperating mixtures.
assignment: none

Math 8S
* We worked on converting fractions to decimals by re-writing them with a denominator of 10, 100, 1000 etc.
assignment: Finish worksheet on converting fractions to decimals.

Science 7X
* We had another look at our mineral identification lab, then started notes and discussion on erosion and weathering.
assignment: none

Math 7X
* Converting between mixed/whole numbers and improper fractions.
assignment: Finish worksheet.

Video Game Design
* We started a new game today - Galactic Mail.

Announcements
* Bring in your Terry Fox pledges if you haven't yet.
* Wednesday night is "Meet the Staff Night." 6 - 7 pm.
* Debate club meeting Wednesday at lunch.
* Student Council applications due on Wednesday

Science 8S
No class today.
assignment: Due for Wednesday: WHMIS worksheet; 5 household products with warning labels assignment; WHMIS/HHPS symbol quiz Wednesday.

Math 8S
We started decimals today: What are decimals; expanded form; converting decimals to fractions
assignment: Handout p. 86 A(even, in fraction form), B (all); p. 87 (all, fully reduce)

PE 8S
We did a 6 minute interval run, played Great Wall of China, and played great game where the teachers get to throw balls at the students!

Science 7X
We did a lab on identifying minerals.

Math 7X
We had a short quiz on drawing and naming mixed and improper fractions, then we continued on with the same topic from a different perspective.

Digital Image Editing
*We took pictures of ourselves today to put in other pictures

Web Page Design
* We did an assignment today on making a web page of our favorite band.

Announcements
* Get your school photos in!
* Bring in your Terry Fox pledges if you haven't yet.
* Wednesday night is "Meet the Staff Night." 6 - 7 pm.
* Debate club meeting Wednesday at lunch.
* Student Council applications due on Wednesday.

Science 8S
assignment: Due for Wednesday: WHMIS worksheet; 5 household products with warning labels assignment; WHMIS/HHPS symbol quiz Wednesday.

Math 8S
We had our integer quiz today.
assignment: none

Science 7X
assignment: Questions 1-7 on erosion.

Math 7X
assignment: Naming mixed and improper fractions worksheet - both sides

Digital Image Editing
We found pictures to put ourselves into today.

Web Page Design
We learned ordered and unordered lists in HTML today.

Announcements
* Debate club meeting next Wednesday.
* Please bring in Terry Fox forms and $.
* Last day to apply for Student Council is next Wednesday.

Science 8S
* We did a WHMIS worksheet today.

Math 8S
* No class due to Terry Fox run.
assignment: Study for Monday's integer quiz.

Science 7X
* We had our Rock Cycle quiz today, and started a worksheet on Weathering and Erosion
assignment: Finish up to question 7 on Erosion worksheet.

Math 7X
* We used fraction pizzas to convert mixed numbers to improper fractions, and back again.
assignment: No assignment.

Announcements
* Terry Fox run tomorrow. Dress warm and bring extra clothes.
* Debate club meeting next Wednesday.
* Student Council applications due next Wednesday.
* Boys volleyball tryouts tomorrow after school.

Science 8S
Today we did a solutions vocabulary crossword puzzle, a solutions quiz, and a solutions mini-lab.
assignment: Finish up solutions lab.

Math 8S
Today we continued to work on integer order of operations, and reviewed for our quiz tomorrow.

Science 7X
Today we did some notes and a relay race on the rock cycle.
assignment: Study for tomorrow's rock cycle quiz

Math 7X
We started our fractions unit with Naming Fractions.
assignment: none


Video Game Design
We fine-tuned our Evil Clutches game, and gave our Boss some health!

Announcements
Students: Are you a future lawyer, or a future politician? Do you have an opinion on everything? Then you should join the debate club! Any students interested in participating in a CLMS Debate Club are asked to attend a quick introductory meeting tomorrow at lunch recess in room 1005.

Students: Are you interested in joining Student Council this year? Do you think you have what it takes to be a classroom representative? Then apply for the job! Ask your homeroom teacher for a Student Council job application form, fill it out and return it to your homeroom teacher by TOMORROW. Late applications will not be accepted!

Terry Fox run on Friday!

Science 8S
We graphed the solubility of 3 chemicals.
assignment: Study for vocabulary quiz, pages 18-24

Math 8S
We worked on order of operations with integers. Yay BEDMAS!
assignment: p. 54 #2-22 even

PE 8S
Fitness; stretching; Pip, Squeek and Wilber; running relay

Science 7X
We finished up our rock cycle presentations.

Math 7X
The kids had math with Mrs. Karch today. They wrote a quiz on prime factorization, and did math puzzles on http://nlvm.usu.edu/en/nav/vlibrary.html. It's a good site.


Video Game Design
We continued to work on our Evil Clutches game.

Announcements
* The Terry Fox run will be held this Friday. The pledge forms went out with the students today.

Science 8S
* I handed back the topic 1 quiz today. The students need to bring these home to get them signed.
assignment: Finish vocabulary notes to page 24.

Math 8S
* We did more multiplying and dividing integers today.
assignment: handout p. 53 #2-22 even

Science 7X
* Still working on the rock cycle!
assignment: none

Math 7X
* The kids calculated their "compound personality number" using prime factors.
* Prime factorization quiz tomorrow.
assignment: p. 86 #10(a-c), 11(a-c), 12(a,b),15(all), 17(b-d), 20(a-c), 23(a-c), 24(b,c)

Video Game Design
* We started a new game today - Evil Clutches!

Tuesday, September 11 to Friday September 15

Math 7X
On Tuesday we learned scientific notation. The assignment was page 69 #2-8, 11, 17. Thursday we had a homework check and quiz, and looked at divisibility rules. On Friday we worked on primes, composites, and prime factorizations using exponents.

Science 8X
This week we worked on the rock cycle.

Math 8S
This week we worked on adding and subtracting integers, had a quiz on adding and subtracting integers, and started multiplying and dividing integers on Friday.

Science 8S
We started on mixing and dissolving – classifying mixtures.

Math 7X

On day5's Mrs. Karch teaches the class math. She went over last Thursday's assignment and taught a lesson on powers and exponents. Assignment: p. 64 #12, 15, 16, 17, 19.

Science 7X

New seating plan today! We continued our Readers Workshop questions on Rocks and Minerals. Assignment: Finish the worksheet if not done in class.

Science 8S

Today we discussed, did notes on, and did a worksheet on:

• definitions of solids, liquids and gasses
• the particle model of matter
• state changes between solids, liquids and gasses

Assignment: Finish the worksheet.

Video Game Design

We finished up our Catch the Clown game.

PE 8S

We tried on and sold school gym strip - nice clothes! We also had open time and a 3 minute fitness run.

Math 8S

We worked on adding more than two integers, and adding larger integers. Assignment: handout p. 42 B (19-24), p. 44 F(1-5), G(1-4, 20-25); multiplication facts practice sheet.

We will have our second multiplication facts quiz on Wednesday.

Friday, September 8

Math 8S
We started on adding fractions and went over 3 different ways of thinking of this operation: on a number line, as winning/losing money, or using fraction discs. Assignment: handout pp. 41, 42 parts A and C; multiplication facts practice sheet.

DPA.

This is a short day, and we ran out of time for science.

Video Game Design
This was our first class. We looked at the Game Maker website to see where they can download the program for free, and at some examples of games that can be created with this program. We started on our first game - Catch the Clown.

Math 7X
Friday seemed like a good day for our first game of Greedy Pig! Assignment: multiplication facts practice sheet.

Science 7X
We watched the video Eyewitness: Rocks and Minerals. The students completed a Video Review Sheet. If they didn't finish it in class it was homework.

Thursday, September 7 Catch-up Entry

Math 8S
We worked on comparing and ordering integers. Assignment: Handout pages 39, 40, parts A, B, D, E, F; multiplication facts practice sheet.

PE 8S
We are with 8M for phys. ed. Mr. Holtein went through the course expectations and outline with the kids.

Digital Image Creation
We continued to work with the drawing tools, and used layers to create a beach/ocean/sunset scene.

Webpage Design
We learned how to change the background and text colors, and to add images using HTML.

Math 7X
We reviewed the place value system, powers of ten, and expanded notation. Assignment: text p. 53 # 4, 5, 7, 9, 10, 13; multiplication facts practice sheet.

Science 7X
We read a passage from the book "Uncle Tungsten" as an introduction to our Rocks and Minerals section. The students then worked on some questions based on the text. No assignment.

Wednesday, September 6 Catch-up Entry

Math 8S
We first discussed "What is Math?" and "Why learn Math?".

Every year I start the math course with two quizzes to get a feel for the students' basic skills. These quizzes are not for marks, just for my information.

The first quiz is a multiplication facts quiz with all the facts from 2 x 2 to 9 x 9. There are 64 questions, and I give the students 4 minutes to complete this. If students know their facts well, they should be able to do it in this amount of time. The students that got less than 60 out of 64 are taking a practice sheet home every day to brush up, and we will have another quiz next week. This method of learning the mutliplication facts doesn't work for some students. For them, I will try some alternate methods.

The second quiz is 11 simple 2 and 3 digit adding, subtracting multiplying and dividing questions. I let them use a multiplication facts sheet for this, because I want to know if they understand the process. The students should know this stuff by now, but I need to know if they need a refresher before we jump into these operations using fractions, decimals and integers.

Students can of course understand mathematical concepts without these basic facts and skills, and use calculators and facts sheets, but it makes it a lot easier for them if they have these facts and skills mastered.

Science 8S
We had D.P.A. (Daily Physical Activity) and did an overview of the course and the important parts/features of the textbook.

Digital Image Creation
We started playing with Adobe Photoshop and learned how to use some of the drawing tools.

Webpage Design
We started learning Hyper Text Markup Language (HTML) for making webpages. I think their brains hurt after this.

Math 7X
Every year I start the math course with two quizzes to get a feel for the students' basic skills. These quizzes are not for marks, just for my information.

The first quiz is a multiplication facts quiz with all the facts from 2 x 2 to 9 x 9. There are 64 questions, and I give the students 4 minutes to complete this. If students know their facts well, they should be able to do it in this amount of time. The students that got less than 60 out of 64 are taking a practice sheet home every day to brush up, and we will have another quiz next week. This method of learning the mutliplication facts doesn't work for some students. For them, I will try some alternate methods.

The second quiz is 11 simple 2 and 3 digit adding, subtracting multiplying and dividing questions. I let them use a multiplication facts sheet for this, because I want to know if they understand the process. The students should know this stuff by now, but I need to know if they need a refresher before we jump into these operations using fractions, decimals and integers.

Students can of course understand mathematical concepts without these basic facts and skills, and use calculators and facts sheets, but it makes it a lot easier for them if they have these facts and skills mastered.

Tuesday, September 5 Catch-up Entry

8S Homeroom
We spent the morning in an assembly and in homeroom. We talked about school and classroom rules and procedures, signed out textbooks, and had Daily Physical Activity.

7X Math and Science
The class split into groups answered the following questions: What is Math? Why learn Math? How do you best learn Math? In science we did an overview of the course.

Welcome to 2006 - 2007!

Well, the new school year has begun and it's time to start blogging again. I'm a week behind, so I'll post what we did the first four days. It was sure great on Tuesday to see all the kids from last year and swap stories about our summers.