JANUARY 8 - 12

SWIMMING BEGINS MONDAY, JANUARY 15TH!

CONFERENCES ARE FEB. 5TH AND FEB 7TH.

 

Middle School Website: This is the link for the middle school website.    

http://www.hamiltonschools.us/schools/hamilton-middle/   

HOMEWORK:     

Math: Remembering 4-3 due Monday

Reading: Read an average of 20 minutes each day.

MATH: 

   Students took the multiplying & dividing fractions test on Wednesday. This is a more difficult unit and we typically see more 1's and 2's. We continue to review all year and students will be able to retest the standards that they received a 1 or 2 on when they are ready. 
  Next week we will begin our Multiplying Whole Numbers & Decimals. Students have already had a lot of practice multiplying except with decimals. 

 If you go to the math tab there are many videos and online practice things to do. It can be very helpful!!

WRITING:  

This past week students wrote a letter to two different audiences on the same topic, using a different tone and word choices. With swimming next week we will not begin a new writing project yet.

READING:

   We have been working on nonfiction standards such as main idea/detail, cause & effect, text structure, quoting text information, and writing complete answers to text questions in a specific, not vague, way.
We read about Mount St. Helens, the mystery of the Mary Celeste ghost ship, and treasure recently salvaged from a pirate ship off the east coast.

SCIENCE:

We have been investigating gravity which isn't completely new to students. We watched Felix Baumgartners 24 mile high free fall from space as part of this discussion. Students are also working on a basic slideshow about a planet. Monday will be the test over gravity. It is one question and they will write a letter explaining their thinking.

 SPELLING: This week we discussed the sounds that ou and ow make and their spelling patterns. The test was Friday and will come home on Monday.

WEEK OF DECEMBER 11th

Middle School Website: This is the link for the middle school website.    

http://www.hamiltonschools.us/schools/hamilton-middle/   

HOMEWORK:     

Math: Remembering 3-10 due Monday

Reading: Read an average of 20 minutes each day.

MATH: 

Weare reviewing multiplying fractions and now have added in dividing fractions. This is when it can become particularly confusing for them, so it's important to be able to understand examples of situations where we would use multiplication and division and be able to model it.We won't take the test until after we come back from Christmas break and review.

 If you go to the math tab there are many videos and online practice things to do. It can be very helpful!!

WRITING:  

  Friday we began reading our snowman stories to the class. I was telling them that it is so fun to see the growth they have made with sentence fluency, using better word choices, adding in conversation, and just being able to read someone's writing and hear their voice in my head which is wonderful!

READING:

Next week we will read a Christmas picture book and discuss theme, character, mood, etc. 

SCIENCE:
I will grade tests this weekend and return them to students on Monday

 SPELLING: Students will bring their spelling test home on Monday. We will review grammar concepts next week, but no new lesson.

Week of December 4th

Middle School Website: This is the link for the middle school website.    

http://www.hamiltonschools.us/schools/hamilton-middle/   

HOMEWORK:     

Math: Remembering 3-7 due Monday

Reading: Read an average of 20 minutes each day.

MATH: 

We have added in multiplying fractions by a fraction as well as multiplying fractions as scaling- how to tell if the product of a fraction products will be >, <, or = to one of the factors. We continue to review all concepts along the way. Next week we will begin dividing a fraction by a whole number.

WRITING:  

 We continue to work on a narrative writing project about a snowman. Students are writing from the snowman's perspective. We are focusing on sentence fluency- using short and long sentences and beginning our sentences with a variety of sentence types.

READING:

We are reading an article, "Race Against Death" a true account of the dogsled teams in Alaska who covered 700 miles in 5 days to bring  antitoxin to the town of Nome, Alaska to save the lives of children with diptheria. We watched a short video that mixed in the animated movie with a verbal accounting of the event. We are working on finding text evidence, vocabulary in context, and summarizing information, and text structure.

SCIENCE:
  We have done some investigations with magnetic forces as non-contact forces as well as electricity as a non-contact force. The test will be next Wednesday. Students have study stacks on Google classroom science.

 SPELLING: The Lesson 11 test over  apostrophes for contractions and possession was Friday. Our next lesson covers homophones.

Middle School Website: This is the link for the middle school website.    

http://www.hamiltonschools.us/schools/hamilton-middle/   

HOMEWORK:     

Math: Remembering 3-8 due Monday

Reading:There is a text passage and questions due Wednesday.

MATH: 

We are continuing to work on multiplying whole numbers by a fraction and fractions by a fraction. We are working on problem solving with these concepts as well as creating visual representations of work.

WRITING:  

 We began a narrative writing project about a snowman. Students are writing from the snowman's perspective. We are focusing on sentence fluency- using short and long sentences and beginning our sentences with a variety of sentence types.

READING:

We will complete Literature Circles this week. We will move onto nonfiction articles through Christmas.

SCIENCE:
Students created paper airplanes, tested them, and then redesigned and retested after the lesson on forces of flight. We had a competition on Friday! Magnetic forces are next.

 SPELLING: Lesson 11 is about using apostrophes for contractions and possession. We will continue to learn more about this into next week and test on Thursday.

Week of November 6th

Middle School Website: This is the link for the middle school website.    

http://www.hamiltonschools.us/schools/hamilton-middle/   

HOMEWORK:     

Math: There is a math review page due Monday.

Reading: Students have a text to read about the Arawak Indians and some questions to complete by Tuesday.

MATH: 

We have been reviewing concepts from the Place value unit and the test is Tuesday. We will go over the test on Wednesday and begin our next unit, Multiplying and Dividing Fractions. This will go through to Christmas break.

WRITING:  

 Students are working on a writing project given to them by Mrs. Maxson. They are taking information they learned about 5 Native American regions and organizing it on slides. They are writing paragraphs about which area they would prefer and why. These are due Wednesday. We will begin a persuasive brochure written from the point of view of a turkey not wanting to be eaten at Thanksgiving.

READING:

Literature Circles began last week. Students are reading in small groups, practicing comprehension strategies that we have been working on this year. I am sitting in with 2-3 groups each day for discussion and comprehension strategy assistance.

 

SCIENCE:   

This week we watched a Bill Nye video about simple machines. We continued our investigation of simple machines by creating ramps and measuring the amount of force it took to lift a wood block straight up as compared to pulling it up a ramp. We will be reviewing concepts this week and the test will be next week.

 

WORD WORK:

We will continue to learn about suffixes this coming week. Knowing the meanings of prefixes and suffixes can help students figure out words they don't know.

 

 SPELLING: This coming week Lesson 10 will focus on prefixes. We have a couple lesson pages that students can study from for the test each week. The test for Lesson 10 will be on Friday.

Week of October 30

Middle School Website: This is the link for the middle school website.    

http://www.hamiltonschools.us/schools/hamilton-middle/   

HOMEWORK:     

Math: Lesson 34 - 5 word problems

Spelling: Complete spelling Lesson 7- compound words          Writing: Some students need to finish final drafts.                                                

  Read: Reading an average of 20 minutes daily is an ongoing homework assignment.

MATH: 

We learned about the associative property and rounding decimals. This coming week we will add in graphing decimals and then review for the test. The test will be Friday.

WRITING:  

Students finished their "Spooky Stories" and we read them to the class- I love that part and the kids really enjoy hearing other's stories as well. 

READING:

We finished reading the article Burning Town about the Peshtigo fire in WI back in the 1800's. This week we will begin literature circles. 

SCIENCE:   In science we have been investigating simple machines. Yesterday we made marshmallow catapults - levers in the simple machine family. Students tested and adjusted their catapults to make the marshmallow go the farthest. We will continue this on Monday.

 

WORD WORK:

We have been working on prefix meanings and usage. We will add in suffixes this coming week. Knowing the meanings of prefixes and suffixes can help students figure out words they don't know.

 

 SPELLING: The test over compound words is Tuesday.