Week ending February 28, 2020

Math - Students have continued to work on multiplication and division of decimals. We will be doing regular operational assessments in order to help students to prepare for the PAT -  Part A math. Students are expected to be able to complete 15 operational questions in 15 minutes with an additional 15 minutes given if needed. Regular operational practice is recommended for all students. As always, extra support is available if students would like help.
Students did some work on order of operations this week, focusing on using BeDMAS to ensure that questions using multiple operations are completed in the proper order. There are a number of good practice sites that can be found in the content section of my D2L page.
D2L
Students are currently doing work that will focus on GCF (Greatest Common Factor) and LCM (Least Common Multiple). This will lead into work that will explore improper fractions and mixed numbers.
Fractions will also be the focus of our next numeracy RTI block.

Science - Students are wrapping up their units on Air and Aerodynamics and Flight. Students learned about the parts of an airplane and how those parts can control a planes movement while in flight.
A helpful review tool is the following link:
Airplane parts
Students also learned the specific names for the movements which include pitch, yaw, and bank or roll.
Using this understanding, students completed an activity where they folded and tested a base model of paper airplane and then made a single modification which they were able to predict what it would do the paper airplane and then test it to see if their plane would do what they guessed in their hypothesis.
There will be an upcoming unit test on the topics covered in these two units next week.
Students who have not yet completed their work on their Air properties/Air Pressure posters, as well as their Google Slide on streamlining should make efforts to complete that work and hand it in or speak to me if they need assistance.
Our next science unit will be Sky Science.
Any questions, please contact me at sthompson@cbe.ab.ca

Week ending February 21, 2020

Math - students have learned how to convert decimal numbers to fractions, percentages, and ratios. Through this they have incorporated previous lessons on how to represent numbers in a variety of ways such as those learned when making large and small numbers during our place value work.

Students have been working on furthering their operational skills to incorporate decimal numbers. As always, it is recommended that students having some difficulties with these skills take the time to practice at home or come in during lunch hour or after school for some additional support.

Upcoming topics will include order of operations, mixed numbers and improper fractions, and factors and multiples.

Science - students need to complete and turn in their posters on air pressure and air properties (air takes up space, air can be compressed, air is affected by temperature, air has weight).

Students also need to complete their Google slide presentation on streamlining and how it can reduce drag in an object of their choosing. Students were given significant class time to complete these projects/assignments and need to speak with me if they need support to complete them.

Students have learned about the parts of an airplane and the movements that some of these parts can produce when it is in flight (pitch, roll or bank, yaw). We will be working towards wrapping up our flight unit by examining variables on paper airplanes and how they can affect their flight.

A unit test similar to the PAT test will conclude the unit. Review material can be found at:

D2L

This is intended to help students become more comfortable with the testing process that takes place in May and June.

Any questions, please feel free to contact me at sthompson@cbe.ab.ca