Thursday, August 30, 2007

Who did it?

There was a theft at a nearby school. The school had a science fair a few months ago and one of the student projects was called, "solution X, A Cure For The Common Cold." It generated a lot of interest at the fair, at the end of the fair a parent even tried to steal it. The project was put in a school safe, but this morning the safe was found open, and the science fair project was missing. In it's place was a note written with a black tipped pen. The note said:
"You can catch a cold, but you can't catch me, I'll run like a nose unless I get a fee. Number 1 with six zeros after. Pardon while I launch into mechanical laughter. Bwa ha,ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha"

Here are our suspects:

A. Kat Chacold: She works for a company that makes medicine. She states that she is not a common thief. She was however asking the student who did the project a lot of questions. What if she stole the recipe for her company? That would be worth a fortune!


B. Ed Chew This muscle bound home economics teacher is angry that they took away his electric mixers due to budget cuts. There's even a rumor he is giving steroids to the kids in his class to build up their muscles so they can make cakes that are light and fluffy. What if Ed Chew stole the project to sell, and make money to buy equipment for his class?
C. Ronnie Noze: he is the Principal of the school and coach of the local champion softball team, who always seem to have a runny nose. It is also true that Ronie Noze has the best pitcher on his team. She always has a cold but never misses a game. Some people wonder if her runny nose has something to do with why the balls she pitches are so hard to hit. Maybe Ronnie Nose stole the projects to prevent a cure for the common cold. Maybe he's afraid his pitcher wouldn't be as good if she didn't have a runny nose?
D. Ivana Tishu: A mother with a big family. She is dedicated to her children and professes not to steal. Her 6 kids are always sick and the family uses many tissues. They have had to buy larger garbage cans. She may be trying to save her family money by stealing the cure or save the landfills....
E. Noah Snotme: His daughter goes to the school that was robbed, but he doesn't work there or have anything to do with it. Noah was angry because his daughter's science project, "Cosmetics for Cats," was out shown by the "Solution X, the Cure for the Common Cold" project. He worked very hard on the project. Oh yeah, I think his daughter helped a little too. So perhaps he's angry about his daughter's project being rejected, and decided to get revenge by stealing the "Cure for the Common Cold" project.
F. Hannah Kercheef: She is a successful clothing designer. She had made a lot of money selling shirts she designed with super absorbent material on the sleeves. They are called "hanky sleeves" and they are for wiping your nose. Hmmmm. Maybe Ms. Kercheef is afraid that if the common cold is cured, she'll be out of business.
Luckily the cops were able to identify these suspects and found them all in possession of a black felt tipped marker. The same type used on the ransom note! We have the chromatography sample from the ransom note as well as the 6 markers that were confiscated from the suspects. We tested the pens...

After testing all of the pens we identified that the pen found with Noah Snotme had the same chromatography design as the ransom note.

Is this enough evidence to convict him?
Our defense lawyers deliberated over this one.

The bigger question to ask really is, why do some pigments creep up the chromatography paper higher than others????? Hummmmmm....

8-30-07

6-7 Math worksheets
8th grade- Math test tomorrow
6th grade -Math test Wednesday

Monday, August 27, 2007

8-27-07 homework

Homework for today:
Math worksheets (all grades) Due tomorrow

Due Thursday:
Fill out your Persuasive Plan (based on your persuasive speech topic)
Rough draft for your persuasive essay. At least 2 pages of notebook paper, handwritten, skipping lines. We will do editing in class.

Divya's stories from India by Clay and Jake

Today we had a special guest!
Her name was Divya Sharma. She told us a story about her mom crossing the border from Pakistan into India during the Partition. Divya's mom was 6 years old when she and her family were forced out of their home in Pakistan. They had to move out because they were Hindu. She was separated from her family because a lot of people were crowding and pushing to get on the other side of the border amidst gunfire and violence. Divya's mom later found her family six months after she was separated. She found her family with the help of one of her parent's friends who noticed her in a refugee camp.
Divya Sharma talking to the 6th, 7th and 8th graders

Divya shows expression with her hands

Everyone was listening intently.
This was Divya's Wedding sari (Indian traditional dress).

This is Divya's wedding picture where she is wearing the Sari.
This is a sari that Divya brought in and put on Marin. We saw how complicated it is to put on a Sari. Isn't it beautiful?

Marin models a traditional Indian Sari. Divya also brought in music. We learned about traditional Indian instruments such as the sitar and the santoor. She also patiently answered so many of our questions.

Thursday, August 23, 2007

What's happening

2 Different research styles




Our Social Studies Project...what do you think really happened to the ancient civilization of Mohenjo-Daro of the Indus Valley???



Class Elections will be tomorrow!

Homework August 23

Finish your Social Studies Newspaper Front Page if you haven't done so.

Read about your research topic so we can do a topic sentence and begin organizing our paper's body next week.

Pictures


The pond samples had some very cool creatures in it! Ask a student what they saw! I'm just glad they are small. What if they were as large as a cow?
On our way to check out the Library! Don't forget to fill out those library cards for next Wednesday if you want a library card. We also found out that if you have a library card you can do research on the computer for free!! Oh Yeah!

research topics- India

We will be writing the research paper in class so students can learn the process of research writing. I would like students to read about their topic in the evenings either from a book or from the internet.

Ganges-Amy
Ghandi- Caleb and Jake
Hinduism- Rachell and Raina
Buddhism- Crosby and Hunter
Jainism- Marin
The Taj Mahal- Clay and Joon
Ghengis Khan- Ilia and Cody
Sikhism-Maddie
Caste System of India- Min Joo

Wednesday, August 22, 2007

homework 8-22-07

6-7-8 Homework
Math homework
We now have our research paper topics. We will do the writing in class so we can be guided through the writing process. We should however, be working on finding information about our topic and reading up on it so writing will come easily. We took a field trip to the library to learn about how to find reference books. Go get 'em!!!!

Tuesday, August 21, 2007

Tuesday August 22 updates

Hi All,
Sorry for the lack of pictures yesterday. We had a computer glitch. We are back on line with pictures from yesterday as well as today to share. In Literature we are reading Hans Christian Anderson, in Social Studies we are learning about India, and in Science we are working with Microscopes. We are also working on persuasive speeches and concrete poetry this week. Don't forget to write something everyday in your thinking log. I will collect those on Fridays.

Here we are in our science centers.
Amy and Maddie look at different fabric samples. Some fabric samples looked like waffles!

Students diligently work in their learning centers.


Clay examines his fingerprints and compares them to the common features of fingerprints.

Jake and Rachel also examine their fingerprints.


Raina checks out her fabric sample.

Rachell makes a magnifying glass out of a water drop.

Excited about microscopes!

Rachell, Cody, and Ilia look at all the dots on a magazine picture. It looks white to us but upon closer examination it is blue and green!!!

Joon gets messy with science.

Caleb and Crosby try to focus the microscope using the coarse focus knob and fine focus knob.

An 8th grade math lesson with Uncle Tom.

TODAY!


We gathered samples to explore under the microscope.
This is a sand sample from micro beach.

Labeled and packaged up.

Sugar Dock Beach

PIC beach

Tank Beach

Hunter collecting pond samples at the Lamar residence.

Sample source.

We were even lucky enough to find mosquito larva in the red bucket. We can't wait to look at all of these things under the microscope.