Math:
This week Da Sprouts added and subtracted integers using the algorithm, then they switched gears to multiplying and dividing integers. They practiced multiplying and dividing integers using both models and with algorithms.
The EverShrooms practiced application inequality problems on Monday. On Tuesday everyone was finally back in class just in time to take a check-in. Even with absences, everyone did a great job! Wednesday and Thursday EverShrooms started their new proportions unit by learning how to cross multiply.
Polar Bears practiced writing linear equations, completing tables for linear equations, graphing linear equations, and giving verbal descriptions of linear equations all on Monday and Tuesday. Wednesday they learned how to solve systems of linear equations by graphing. On Thursday they learned how to identify proportional linear equations.
Mountain Lizards had a lesson over writing parallel and perpendicular linear equations on Monday and practiced on Tuesday. On Wednesday they completed a review of linear functions for their check-in on Thursday.
ELA:
This week all the students reviewed compound sentences. They gained a deeper understanding of how a tiny comma and one of the FANBOYS conjunctions is the only glue strong enough to bond two independent clauses.
In literature we are still reading The Odyssey. Just when we think poor Odysseus is in the most dire of dire straits, he is elevated to a whole new higher level of peril!
The Evershrooms and Da Sprouts spent the week working on a collaborative art project illustrating the chapter, “The Land of the Dead.” We started by finding text evidence to prove which ghosts visited Odysseus and wrote a brief summary of each one’s relationship to him. Then students worked in small groups to paint, draw, and cut out scenery while also creating individual ghosts out of glue and googly eyes.
Iceberg students also pitched in to make glue ghosts, but spent most of the week discussing the temptations of Circe and Odysseus’s quest to Land of the Dead. The class split up into two teams and competed for points in a gameshow style quiz; this helped them review and process the consequences Odysseus’s crew suffered for harming Helios’s cattle. Turns out, the gods were a spiteful bunch!
Theme:
Projects, projects, and more projects!! Theme class this work focused on the application of student knowledge of ancient Greece, its geography, and how the land and location impacted the settlement of the Greek City-States. Students began with the creation of a Storyboard cartoon that chronicled the factors that impact how Greece developed its city-state system. Students investigated and illustrated the plight of Greek farming, colonization through the Mediterranean Sea, and trading on a merchant ship.
Students then picked a personal favorite of the city-states and analyzed its cultural traits. Looking for the characteristics to use as illustrations, students created Currency Coins to represent their city-states. They created mottos and spelled them out using the ancient Greek alphabet, and designed their coins based on the symbols chosen from their research.
The week ended with students continuing their development of the Teen Tragedy plays. Groups focused on plot and character development, starting the process of writing the scripts for their 8 scene plays. WIth topics ranging from betrayal to inner beauty, the plays, which will be staged the week of Dec. 11th (mark your calendars!!), are sure to end our quarter with a bang!!
Left: Da Sprouts and Evershroom students look for text evidence in The Wanderings of Odysseus. Right: One of the Iceberg teams scrambles to list more monsters and obstacles faced by Odysseus than the other team.
Da Sprouts glue down the river they painted for the “Land of the Dead” project.
Halloween provided Delta students and teachers the opportunity to show off their costumes, both during the AHB Costume Walk, above, and during station information on Ancient Greek city-states.
At top, Theme students work to complete a Venn Diagram comparing the characteristics of Athens and Sparta. Below, students take a Brain Break to play a rousing round of ELEVEN.
Ms. Amanda assists with students playing the Stock Market Game.
Theme groups work to draft their scripts for their
Greek Tragedy play projects.
